
Glass 

Book 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 




Rtv. L. A. La.wbert, LL.D. 



INGERSOLL'S 

CHRISTMAS SERMON 



REVIEWED BY 

REV. L. A. LAMBERT, LL.D. 

Author of " Notes on Ingersoll," " Tactics 
of Infidels," etc. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

RT. REV. J. L. SPALDING, D.D. 



/ x ' ur riotOr THE ^ 



C c 5591 M 14 1898 






AKRON, OHIO^*---^ ."; _ vj_— ~ ^ 
CHICAGO NEW YORK 

D. H. MCBRIDE & COMPANY 
1898 



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2754 



Copyright, 1897, 

BY 

D. H. McBRIDE & COMPANY 




INTRODUCTION 



Oh, brother, 'mid far sands 

The palmtree-cinctured city stands; 

Bright white beneath, as heaven bright blue 

Leans o'er it, while the years pursue 

Their course, unable to abate 

Its paradisal laugh at fate. 

— Browning. 

hhe tendency of philosophic speculation, since 
Kant, is largely towards agnosticism and in- 
tellectual nihilism. It is maintained that we 
cannot know what anything is, for the reason that 
we know and can know only our impressions ; 
whether they have a cause or what that cause is 
we cannot know. In all perception we perceive 
merely a condition of ourselves ; and all knowledge, 
therefore, is a knowledge of ourselves. Nor can 
we truly know this self, for we are conscious only 
of its transitory moods and affections. We do not, 
in fact, know that we know ; we merely believe 

(iii) 



iv INTRODUCTION. 

that we know. We do not know that things really 
are, but suppose them to be. Truth, therefore, 
is not a harmony of ideas with things, but a cor- 
respondence of thought with thought. The crit- 
ical philosophy, in denying the validity of infer- 
ence from the subjective to the objective, denies 
that knowledge has any real value. We are for- 
ever shut up within our own self -consciousness, 
impotent to know whether there is an external 
world or whether we ourselves are anything. This 
criticism of knowledge, so far as it affects our 
views of the material universe, is simply ignored 
as senseless hair-splitting ; but when it is applied 
to the spiritual universe, to God and the soul, 
many take it quite seriously and doubt whether 
it is not destructive of the very foundations 
of religious belief. It is impossible to persuade 
them that they do not know what matter is, but 
they accept, without much hesitation, a system of 
hopeless nescience as to everything which deeply 
and everlastingly interests the human mind and 
heart. They are ready to believe that criticism 
shatters all the priceless things to which men have 
clung — tw The idols of metaphysics and the idols of 
religion; the idols of the imagination and the idols 
of history " — that it makes everything a lie : truth, 
honor and justice, hope, faith and love, freedom, 



INTRODUCTION. V 

duty and conscience. Much of the current scien- 
tific speculation leads in the same direction. It 
assumes that matter alone is real. The power, 
behind and within all phenomena, is simply the 
unknowable, that is, the non-existent, since intel- 
ligibility is co-extensive with being. There is 
nothing but force and motion. The universe is a 
machine which runs itself. It is, and the hypoth- 
esis of God is not needed to explain either its 
existence or its operation. Force and motion and 
their modifications are the sum and substance of 
all reality. Hence, human action is controlled by 
the same physical laws which keep the stars in the 
heavens, and a noble thought or a generous emo- 
tion is not more admirable or more praiseworthy 
than the feats of an acrobat. "The worst man," 
says Nietzsche, "is perhaps the best, for he is in- 
dispensable to the keeping alive of instincts and 
tendencies without which mankind had long since 
fallen into lethargy and decay. Hate, envy, am- 
bition, and whatever else is called wicked, preserve 
the race, however prodigal and foolish the means. 
Whatever, in fact, a man may do or omit, he is 
probably a benefactor of the race." As knowledge 
is meaningless, virtue is worthless. Necessity is 
the only God and unreason is deified. In such a 
world life's true worth is lost. They who no longer 



vi INTRODUCTION. 

have the power to believe in the living, loving 
God, lose faith in themselves. The only real thing 
left to them is matter, and possession is the high- 
est good ; money and self-indulgence are the 
highest aims. Apart from this, they are mere 
mental vagrants, who drift idly among all the 
great and vital problems. They are, indeed, still 
haunted by the Unseen, and hence it pleases them 
to listen to those who pass with an irreverent and 
mocking spirit, through the sanctities and infin- 
ities, from which the noblest minds and hearts have 
drawn hope and strength. In matters of the best 
and highest, the absolute and eternally real, they 
have neither faith nor knowledge, but, at the most, 
some sort of opinions, which they hold lightly, as 
being, in all probability, neither truer nor falser 
than innumerable other opinions which have been 
and yet shall be current. The existence of God, 
the reality of the self, the intimations of conscience, 
are interesting as questions of debate, as stimulants 
of thought, but not as subjects about which it is 
possible to know anything with certainty. They 
incline to believe that God is only a concept, an 
abstraction, just as truth, honor, duty, love, good- 
ness, mercy, justice, science, progress, are abstrac- 
tions. Thus the divine and infinite becomes for 
them a world of shadows. Their highest aim is to 



INTRODUCTION. v ii 

transform matter in every way. They think it a 
godlike thing to move rapidly, to live in splendid 
houses, to eat delicious food, to dwell in populous 
cities, to possess millions of money. They strive 
for a state of things in which they imagine happi- 
ness may be found, not understanding that happiness 
or blessedness does not consist in any possible static 
condition, in the possession of any conceivable 
thing, but in a ceaseless striving for the best, for 
truth and love. Righteousness, not abundance, is 
life. Fine clothes do not make the body strong and 
healthy ; rich possessions do not make the soul great 
and free. " The highest type of man," says Aristotle, 
1 ' finds his pleasures in the noblest things. ' ' Of such 
things money can never be the symbol or equivalent. 
It is a means, not an end. As thought and love 
unfold we perceive that they are more precious than 
all else ; and thus we are led to understand that per- 
sonal worth is the measure of all worth. What our 
Lord said of the Sabbath is true of all things. They 
are for man, not man for them. They are good and 
useful because they are helps to a right course of 
human life. Man is made for truth and love : the 
avenues that lead to God ; and the measure of the 
worth of all institutions, political, educational and 
religious, is their power to bring men to the knowl- 
edge of truth and the practice of love. This is the 



viii INTRODUCTION. 

measure of the value of every kind of human labor, 
the principle underlying all our social problems. 
The best climate is not that in which we are most 
comfortable, but that which is most favorable to the 
exercise of our noblest faculties, and the laborer is 
most fortunate not where he receives the highest 
pay, but where his work contributes most effect- 
ively to the development of character. Faith itself 
is not final ; it is a means, not an end. When it is 
superseded by knowledge there is gain, not loss. 
Knowledge and love are final, because they are the 
highest conceivable modes of union with the eternal 
and infinite. 

The misery of our age is the consciousness that 
what we live for is not God's truth; and that what 
it is easiest to turn to is still less His truth. We 
live without hope, not knowing, in the universal 
whirl, what to choose. We know that our way of 
life is not the best, that the things we chiefly de- 
sire are more or less worthless, and that we desire 
them only because we ourselves are poor and mis- 
erable. But this insight is looked upon with sus- 
picion, Ave turn from it as from an evil suggestion ; 
and plunge again into the world of appearance and 
show, for we have neither a mind nor a heart to 
know and love God's real world of truth and good- 
ness. Those who have lost faith in God have no 



INTRODUCTION. i x 

faith in ideals. But idealism is conscientiousness, 
and an age which does not believe in ideals is 
fatally driven to seek money and indulgence as the 
highest good. Hence our one virtue is thrift. The 
thrifty succeed ; they gain wealth and honor, what 
matter if they make themselves unintelligent and 
incapable of the rational enjoyment of life. "The 
free life of God," says Aristotle, "is such as our 
brief best moments." Hence the high and free 
enjoyment of the faculties which make us human is 
the end of life, and the chief end of labor is to fit 
us for a noble repose and leisure in which the soul 
may play at ease amid the realms of truth, good- 
ness and beauty. How far above us, with our 
inner poverty and vulgar show, our knowledge not 
for itself but for politics and trade, this pagan phi- 
losopher rises, sitting there where we dare not soar ! 
To men who are not serious students, who are not 
seeking after truth, to whom hunger and thirst for 
righteousness is meaningless verbiage, who, having 
lost faith in the reality of the whole spiritual world, 
hang helpless in the network of material aims and 
desires, a frivolous and mocking critic and demol- 
ishes like Colonel Ingersoll, comes with a charm 
and persuasiveness equal to that of poets and ora- 
tors. When we deliberately walk in lower ways, it 
is pleasant to think that no man knows whether 



x INTRODUC TION. 

there be higher. After hearing him, they say to 
themselves : no one can know anything of God, the 
soul, freedom of the will, and human responsibility. 
The only thing we are certain of is that we see and 
taste and touch. Let us get money and enjoy our- 
selves. In humoring their religious doubt and 
indifference, he helps to confirm them in philistin- 
ism and secularism. In losing faith in God and in 
their own godlike nature, they lose the mightiest 
impulse to high and heroic life. "An immense 
moral, and probably intellectual degeneration," 
says Renan, in his latest book, "would follow the 
disappearance of religion from the world. You 
can get much less from a humanity which disbe- 
lieves in the immortality of the soul than from one 
which believes." 

Everything depends on what we really believe 
and love. He who prefers alcohol to honor and 
duty is what this preference makes him. An 
infinite faith and hope have lived and still live 
in the world. These have been and are the wings 
whereon men have risen towards the highest and 
the best. To persuade them that their divinest and 
holiest thoughts and moods spring from mere delu- 
sion is to discourage and degrade them. The soul 
believes that it lives in God and with God. To 
destroy this belief and to make it feel that it is 



INTRODUCTION. x i 

wedded only to matter, to what is beneatn it, is to 
sadden and bewilder, to drive it forth from its true 
home into a desert where it can commune only with 
the senseless wilderness and beasts of prey. The 
union of the higher with the lower produces the 
lower. The mulatto, even the octoroon, is still a 
negro. He who would help men, must help them 
to believe that the beginning and end of all things 
is life, not matter. Of the dead as utterly separate 
from the living, we can have no conception ; for by 
the very law of our being, we associate matter with 
sensation and sensation with life. Life, then, is 
within and around, beneath and above all things. 
Our notions of matter are all permeated with 
thought and feeling, consequently with life. Force, 
size, hardness, and whatever other ideas enter into 
our views of the material world, have meaning only 
when blended with what lives and thinks. Nature 
is instinct with mind, and if there were no Supreme 
Mind there would be no universe. In the universe 
there is a tendency from chaos to cosmos, from the 
dead to the living, from the outward to the inward, 
and this movement is Nature's revelation of God. 
Life, conscious of itself, is aware of its own immor- 
tality, for the highest consciousness is of that which, 
like truth and love, is eternal. 

Whoever seeks to persuade men to lower views 



xii INTRODUCTION. 

of life, is a frivolous thinker, and his influence is 
fatally immoral. Only a great moral purpose can 
sustain a great soul, and a great moral purpose 
rests finally on faith in God. If there is no God, 
all that is, is meaningless and vain. If He is, I 
fear no evil; if He is not, I hope for no good. 
Plato's precept is — learn to die; Spinoza's — learn 
to live; Christ's — learn to know God. Death 
shows the vanity of life ; true life shows the im- 
potence of death to do harm to those who love God. 
He reveals Himself within the will of man as 
within his mind. We cannot even desire that 
anything but the Infinite Best should satisfy us, 
and, if we acted with full consciousness, we should 
understand that in all things we pursue, we seek 
God, however blindly; we should know that we 
can be made blessed, not by the possession of 
anything, not even by a virtuous condition of soul, 
but only by the living view of God's presence in 
the world. Whatever state we attain to, we value it 
as a means to something better. Shall we not then, 
at last, seek to reach the best? Or shall we believe 
that life is but a sickly dream? It is God who 
whispers within the human conscience, which is 
but a phase of consciousness ; it is He Who puts 
morality in the nature of things ; Who makes a high 
and honorable mode of life, followed with perse- 



INTRODUCTION. xiii 

verance, become, in time, a pleasant kind of life, 
while the immoral pursuit of power, or pleasure or 
money leads to misery. It is He Who causes noble 
and virtuous sentiments to give delight and cour- 
age to those by whom they are genuinely felt, 
whereas low passions make wretches and cowards. 
It is He Who makes virtue self -preservative ; vice, 
self-destructive. 

If the eye were not sunlike, how could it behold 
the light? If the soul were not godlike, why 
should it forever yearn for God, seeking Him, 
behind all that it follows and loves? Our highest 
aspirations reveal our deepest needs. Religion, 
then, is the greatest and holiest factor within us. 
"The thing a man does practically believe," says 
Carlyle, "the thing a man does practically lay to 
heart, and know for certain concerning his vital 
relations to this mysterious universe, and his duty 
and destiny there, that is, in all cases, the primary 
thing for him, and creatively determines all the 
rest." Whether or not man shall ever fathom 
the mystery of being, shall ever truly read Nature's 
secret, to believe in God, which in the past has 
been the highest wisdom, will in the future also 
continue to be the highest wisdom ; and as we 
more and more realize that God is the highest truth, 
perfect holiness and infinite love, we shall evolve, 



xiv INTRODUCTION. 

not a new religious creed, but new and fairer 
manifestations of the healing, strengthening and 
ennobling power of religion — of that religion which 
is embodied in the life and teachings of Christ. 

In the midst of all our feeble and bewildering 
scepticism, we see, more clearly than men have ever 
seen before, the hopeless disappointment and dis- 
gust which sensual indulgence involves. The thing 
has been analyzed and we hold our breath. The 
ideals of money and place the intelligent now rec- 
ognize to be unsatisfactory; and we begin to under- 
stand that, to be famous is to survive only as an im- 
personal influence, to outlive ourselves in something 
which is not ourselves. What remains to us then 
but to be Buddhists or Christians, to aim either to 
cease to be, or to live with the Eternal? What is 
truth and love? I find fault with Colonel Ingersoll, 
not because his faith and opinions are not mine, but 
because he approaches the most vital and sacred 
subjects which the mind of man can consider in 
a frivolous and mocking spirit ; because he dis- 
cusses the most momentous and solemn of all 
questions, without reverence, which is the highest 
feeling known to man. "Look for a people en- 
tirely destitute of religion," says Hume, "and if 
you find them at all, be assured they are but a few 
degrees removed from brutes." This is the tes- 



INTRODUCTION. xv 

timony of the most sceptical mind, whose thought 
has found a permanent place in literature. Since 
religion, of some kind, interpenetrates all thought, 
love and aspiration is part of all human nobleness 
and excellence, of all struggles for truth and jus- 
tice, of all solace in wretchedness, of all hope in 
the presence of death. To combat it, in its highest 
form, with shameless assertion, sarcasm and ridi- 
cule, is to sin against human nature itself. " Ridi- 
cule is," to quote Carlyle again, "intrinsically a 
small faculty. It is directly opposed to thought, 
to knowledge, properly so called ; its nourishment 
and essence is denial, which hovers only on the 
surface, while knowledge dwells far below. More- 
over, it is by nature selfish and morally trivial ; it 
cherishes nothing but our vanity, which may, in 
general, be left safely enough to shift for itself. 
It is not by derision or denial, but 
by far deeper, more earnest, diviner means, that 
anything truly great has been affected for man- 
kind ; that the fabric of man's life has been reared, 
through long centuries to its present height." 
As it takes a hero to understand a hero, a poet to 
love a poet, so only a reverent and religious mind 
can rightly deal with questions of religion. We 
are offended less by what Colonel Ingersoll says, than 
by the spirit in which it is said. Marcus Aurelius, 



xvi INTRODUCTION. 

in the midst of dissolving paganism, is bewildered. 
He does not attempt to conceal his doubts as to 
whether there are gods ; but he is always serious 
and earnest, and hence his thoughts are precious 
to all who think and feel, whatever their faith or 
lack of faith may be. We are aware that he is a 
man with men, who treats reverently whatever 
mankind has held to be high and sacred. Soc- 
rates drank hemlock because he was found guilty 
of blaspheming the gods of Athens, but the noble 
and religious spirit which breathes in all his utter- 
ances makes him not only the father of philosophy, 
but the brother of prophets and saints. For Vol- 
taire, himself, it may be possible to find excuse, for 
he was by nature a persifleur, a man born to take 
a light and superficial view of all things, and to 
mock, therefore, at himself and mankind. Besides 
he lived in an age when religion had become asso- 
ciated with inveterate and intolerable abuses. And, 
then, he had wit and style, and not the mere 
faculty of caricature. 

Fichte, the least orthodox of men, accused even 
of atheism, is always earnest and noble in his 
treatment of religion. What worlds lie between 
Colonel Ingersoll and him, who wrote these words : 
44 Even to the end of time all wise and reverent 
men must bow themselves before this Jesus of 



INTRODUCTION. xvii 

Nazareth ; and the more wise, intelligent and noble 
they themselves are, the more humbly will they 
recognize the exceeding nobleness of this great 
and glorious manifestation of the Divine Life." 
Richter, I suppose, was not a Christian, but this is 
what he writes : ' ' Christ was the holiest among 
the mighty, and the mightiest among the holy. He 
lifted, with His pierced hands, empires off their 
hinges ; He turned the stream of history and He still 
governs the ages." 

Colonel Ingersoll forgets that religion is not, in 
any proper sense at all, a subject for verbal warfare 
a question to be settled by a debating club. It is 
our very human life, our highest aspiration, our 
deepest need. It is a life to live, an attitude towards 
God and His Universe to be ceaselessly held, 
and only in a very minor way and chiefly for those 
who have lost the sense of its real import is it a 
matter for controversy and logic-chopping. As 
the faith of healthful minds in the reality of the 
external world is not disturbed by metaphysical 
theories, so belief in God and the soul rides trium- 
phant over the arguments of materialists and 
atheists. Difficulties there are, many and possibly 
insuperable, but whatever line of thought we take, 
the moment we attempt to descend to the ultimate 

cause and essence of things, reason seems to be- 
I.C.S.— 2 



xviii INTRODUCTION. 

come involved in hopeless contradictions. A uni 
versal unconscious principle from which all things 
proceed is as incomprehensible as an Infinite Being 
Who thinks and loves. The religious do not claim 
that they have a clear view of the object of their 
adoration. Their insistence upon the virtue and 
necessity of faith is evidence of this. They rec- 
ognize that what is plain is the exception, and that 
mystery is everywhere. In the limitless expanse a 
few stars twinkle; all else is darkness. ''There is 
a chain in the hand of God," says Max Mtiller, 
" which holds together all the beings of the universe, 
even to the smallest grain of sand. Here and there 
we discover its links, but, for the most part, it is 
hidden from our sight." Whatever our solution of 
the enigma of being and of life, we accept it on 
faith. No man can know that the unconscious can 
create consciousness. The atheist believes in his 
dogma, as the theist believes in his God. The one 
holds that the Infinite Power, which all dimly dis- 
cern, is mere matter; the other is certain that it is 
life and truth and love and beauty. If the atheist 
ask, how could God create such a world? the theist 
replies with the question : How could matter create 
a soul which thinks and loves, which is nourished 
by deathless hope and uplifted by infinite aspira- 
tion? To those who affirm that the Almighty is 



INTRODUCTION. xix 

fatal, blind and senseless, great human hearts will 
forever reply, with their cry of faith, that the in- 
finitely strong is also the infinitely wise and good. 
If the materialist were right, those who believe in 
God would still have the better part. It is a higher 
human thing and a mightier, to trust the larger 
hope. We cannot but believe that the highest is 
more nearly akin to what within us is high than to 
what is low. The ship of faith is a Columbian ship. 
Believers have been world-compellers and world- 
re vealers. They have conquered with Paul ; they 
have founded empires with Charlemagne; they have 
written epics with Dante and Milton; they have 
read the secret of the stars with Copernicus and 
Kepler; they have sailed the sea of darkness with 
Columbus; they have cleared the wilderness for the 
people's rule, with Pizzaro and Cortez. Life's cur- 
rent has welled within them in a clear, perennial, 
fresh-flowing stream; and they have hugged death 
himself, believing that he unlocks the door through 
which we pass to God, by Whose throne flows life's 
full tide. They live the life, and the doctrine 
whereby it is expressed is for them nowise uncer- 
tain. The objector they find to be something of a 
trifler. He is not wholly in earnest about any- 
thing, else he would find less time to argue and 
dispute. This verbalism, after all, settles nothing 



xx INTRODUCTION. 

that is worth settling. He who tells us what diffi- 
culties and doubts he has, and what difficulties 
and doubts the faith of others suggests to him, 
renders us no real service ; and he is, besides, as 
uninteresting and tiresome to a self -active mind as 
one who complains and laments. Let those, who 
seek pretexts for doing nothing or doing ill, listen 
to him; but they, who feel that life is eternity's 
seedtime, dwell in worlds where all this phrase- 
mongering is as unprofitable as the discussions of 
schoolboys or as a politician's zeal for the country's 
welfare. Why should the good and wise care to 
see a man pull even the most wretched thatched 
hovel about the heads of its inmates? Show them 
how and where they may find a nobler dwelling, 
and they will leave the hovel. Be a builder, not a 
destroyer ; a creator, not an objector. 

Colonel Ingersoll's method of criticism is one which 
cultivated men have long since thrown aside. The 
critic's function, as scholars now hold, is not to 
point out faults, but to discover and make known 
what is true, excellent and beautiful. What is 
trivial and hideous anyone may understand and 
see, but to learn to know and appreciate the best 
that has been thought and said, we all need the 
instruction and guidance of those who are wiser 
and more sensitive than ourselves. If he who 



INTRODUCTION. xxi 

teaches me a new truth, however disagreeable, is 
my benefactor, so is he who helps me to see what 
is fair and true in life and literature ; but he who 
criticises the Bible, — of which Kant said that a 
single one of its lines had consoled him more than 
all the books he had read, — in the mood and temper 
of a mocker and coarse humorist, is to me like 
the bull with hay on its horn, mentioned by Hor- 
ace. He is as interesting as Voltaire when he 
declares that Shakespeare has not the smallest 
spark of good taste or the least acquaintance 
with the rules. Colonel Ingersoll's controversial 
method is as unsatisfactory as his critical. He is 
a polemical guerrilla. He does not attempt to lay 
formal seige to the fortress of religious truth, but 
he lies in wait for some sleepy sentinel or band of 
marauders, and when he has fired his blunderbuss, 
chuckles with delight, as though he had gained a 
victory. No well-read man will claim that he says 
anything new. The significance of what he says 
lies in the emphasis with which he says it. Em- 
phasis is bad style. It is the attempt to make 
poverty look like riches, to give to platitudes the 
semblance of profound thought. His secret is that 
of the rhetorician, who, when he has made a thing 
appear ridiculous, would have us believe there is 
nothing more to say. But even those who do not 



xxii IN TRODUC TION. 

think deeply, feel, when they have read him, that 
there is infinitely more in the religion of Christ 
than any words of his will ever reveal. Sane men 
will never believe that life is a comedy, a mere freak 
of nature; and, consequently, they can never be 
persuaded that religion is a delusion. As time 
lengthens, thought widens ; but the larger view 
does not annul the truth there is in the faith of 
those whose world was narrower. To think other- 
wise is to be a philistine ; is to imagine, for instance, 
that the classical languages are dead languages, 
whereas, in truth, they are the living mother tongues 
of all who think and aspire nobly. In them there 
breathes the spirit of our intellectual ancestors- — of 
the masters who first showed the world how to use 
the mind ; which gave form and direction to philoso- 
phy, science, poetry and eloquence, and voice in 
the idioms of all cultivated peoples, the power to 
develop and inspire; and in which there is found 
neither the knowledge of nature nor the ex- 
perience of life. The fundamental conception of 
Christianity is that of progress in the knowledge 
of God and His universe. The increasing intelli- 
gence of mankind is the gradual revelation of the 
Divine Mind. To deny this is to deny God and 
reason. All real progress, indeed, is the growing 
manifestation of the Infinite Being, Who lives and 



IN TROD UCTION. xxiii 

loves within the whole. He fulfills Himself in 
many ways, and the more we bring all our endow- 
ments into activity, the more like unto Him do we 
grow. The lack of the sense for historical per- 
spective is Colonel IngersolPs great defect. He pro- 
jects our modern consciousness into the past, and 
finds fault with his great grandfather because he 
did not know what it was impossible for him to 
know. He is like one who should treat Columbus 
with contempt, because he sailed for Cipango and 
not for America, whose very existence was unknown 
to the Europe of his day. He imagines the Coper- 
nican system is an argument against inspiration. 
He assumes that the Bible is a book of science, and 
then points the finger of scorn at it because it does 
not teach the Newtonian theories. He throws him- 
self into the primitive and barbarous life of the 
wandering tribes of Israel, and is scandalized be- 
cause their moral code is not wholly comparable to 
that of a highly-developed and complex social 
organism like our own. There was a time when 
feudalism was a blessing; for us it would be a curse. 
There has been a time when a people could save 
itself only by expelling foreign and unfriendly ele- 
ments ; in the modern age this is neither necessary 
nor desirable. 

Colonel Ingersoll belie ves in the theory of evolution , 



xxiv INTRODUCTION. 

and treats Christianity as though development did 
not exist. He makes humanitarianism the supreme 
and only saving truth, and refuses to recognize the 
fact that the Christian religion has created the con- 
ditions that have made such faith possible. He 
exalts the worth of woman, and fails to see that the 
power that made her man's equal before God, 
thereby set her feet in the way of a larger and nobler 
life. He extols freedom and forgets that the germ 
of our modern liberties lies in the apostolic appeal 
from man to God, from emperors and mobs to 
conscience, which is found in the separation of the 
spiritual and temporal powers, and distinguishes 
Christian civilization from all other. He is elo- 
quent in the praise of true marriage and of homes 
consecrated by the heart's devotion ; and he has 
only words of scorn for the Church which has ever 
set its face against polygamy, and has fostered with 
ceaseless care the virtue of chasity, which is the 
mother of pure love, and a woman's crown. He 
is filled with horror at the thought of wars and 
massacres in which religious passions have played 
a part, and he has no words of commendation for 
the army of Christian men and women, who, in 
every age, have walked in the ways of peace, have 
quelled strife, have spread good will, have re- 
deemed captives, have watched by the deathbeds 



INTRODUCTION. xxv 

of the forsaken, have moved like ministering angels 
in the midst of the victims of pestilence and famine, 
and have stooped to breathe words of hope into the 
ears of the most abandoned criminals. t4 The only 
irremediable ill," says George Eliot, k4 is that which 
falls upon a mind debased." But Christ has taught 
us that the disease even of a degraded nature is 
such that the germ of the divine life is never 
wholly extinguished even in the most perverted 
soul. 

I have reason to believe that Colonel Ingersoll is 
a generous and kind-hearted man. Let him turn 
from persecutions and inquisitions, from predes- 
tination and infant damnation, — since nothing of 
this is, in any true sense, Christianity, — to the reli- 
gion of infinite hope and love, of gentleness and 
peace, of mercy and forgiveness, of purity and per- 
fectness through suffering, which the Blessed Sav- 
ior taught. Let him think of that charity which 
enters the darkest recesses of vice and misery, 
to bring light and healing ; which weakens the 
barriers that separate class from class, and nation 
from nation ; which carries into war itself the 
spirit of pity and humanity. Let him think of 
the tender thought which watches over childhood 
even in the mother's womb, which has made every 
true man and every good woman the lovers and 



xx vi INTRODUCTION. 

helpers of those little ones, who keep the world 
young and fresh, whom Christ took into His arms 
and blessed, and of whom He said, their angels see 
God's face in heaven. Let him think of that wide 
sympathy, which embraces all tribes and peoples, 
all ages and conditions, which, while it seems to 
concern only the perfection of individual man, 
becomes the vital principle of civilization, giving 
new meaning to life, new strength to morality, 
new vigor to the nations, introducing into history 
a higher conception of God and of man, and of 
man's duty to God and to his fellowman, issuing 
in a purer and nobler worship, and slowly flower- 
ing into the fuller consciousness of the brother- 
hood of the whole race, into which the spirit of 
nationalism shall at length, as generous hearts be- 
lieve, be absorbed. This religion of Christ has 
conquered where philosophies have failed; it has 
ennobled where arts have degraded ; it has wrought 
for larger and purer life where republics have 
perished in sensuality and lawlessness. Its chronic 
vigor is so unfailing that the very diseases which 
find a nest in its constitution, seem to grow im- 
mortal. 

" We understand ourselves to be risking no new 
assertion," says Carlyle, "but simply reporting 
what is already the conviction of the greatest of 



IX TR OJD UCTION. xxvii 

our Age, when we say that, cheerfully recogniz- 
ing, gratefully appropriating, whatever Voltaire has 
proved or any other man has proved, or shall 
prove, the Christian religion — once here — cannot 
again pass away; that, in one or the other form, it 
will endure through all time : that, as in Scripture, 
so also in the heart of man is written: • The gates 
of Hell shall not prevail against it ' . . .It was 
a height to which the human species were fated 
and enabled to attain : and from which, having 
once attained it. they can never retrograde." 

The world, indeed, is still far from the perfect 
knowledge and love of the Divine Life, which is 
revealed in Christ. We are all still misled by error 
and passion : but when we look back we see that 
progress has been made. In the spiritual, as in the 
material world, great and far-reaching changes take 
place in long lapses of time. The enthusiast ex- 
pects to accomplish in a generation what God takes 
centuries to bring about. He lacks insight. The 
wise will learn patience, and look less to what 
makes an immediate impression than to what leads 
to truth and permanent results. The important 
thing is to keep clear, within the mind and the con- 
science, true distinctions between right and wrong. 
We readily admit that untruthfulness, cruelty and 
dishonesty are vices ; but we are slow to believe in 



xxviii INTRODUCTION. 

the guilt of the indifferent and unbelieving. It is 
the fashion to make doubt a virtue, as though one 
could have the right to rest unresolved where vital 
interests are at stake, as though we did not live 
in a world where faith alone makes action possible, 

"Belief or unbelief 
Bears upon life, determines its whole course.'' 

J. L. Spalding. 



INGERSOLL'S 

CHRISTMAS SERMON 

Reviewed by L. A. Lambert 
CHAPTER I. 

To the Editor of the Evening Telegram: — 

I avail myself of your suggestion to reply to some 
statements made by Mr. Ingersoll in his latest 
outbreak. He has been comparatively quiet 
about Christianity of late years, and some began to 
believe his monomania had subsided; but it is very 
evident they erred in their diagnosis. Owing to 
his silence he had begun to fall away from public 
attention, which constantly seeks new and fresh 
stimulants. He was settling down into that condi- 
tion which has been aptly phrased "innocuous 

29 



3° 



INGERSOLVS CHRISTMAS SERMON 



desuetude," a condition not at all congenial to one 
whose thorax expands with applause. This may 
account for his late pyrotechnic display. 

In his late utterances Mr. Ingersoll only threshes 
over again the old straw of his lectures on "The 
Mistakes of Moses," "The Gods," "Skulls and 
Ghosts." All these I have read, and in reading 
his last effort I recognize the old familiar faces of 
his sophisms, mis-statements and tricks of speech — 
the same venerable chestnuts that, unlike good whis- 
ky, have not improved with age. 

The Colonel is growing old, like myself. The 
sun of our days is setting beyond the hills, and 
illumines only with cold, retreating rays the valley 
shadows that are closing in about us like a shroud. 
The tide of life's fitful fever is going out, and we 
are drifting out with the tide. And then ? A ques- 
tion to be asked. 

In his old lectures Mr. Ingersoll exhausted all 
the ammunition in his anti-Christian armory, and 
is now very naturally under the necessity of re- 
peating himself. He is not to be blamed for this, 
and I do not mention it as a reproach. Few men 
can be original to the last. There is a limit to the 
most prolific imagination, and it has been observed 
of even the greatest writers that they wrote them- 
selves out. Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Hugo, the 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



3 1 



elder Dumas, and others, who lived beyond middle 
life, began to repeat themselves toward the last 
and it should not be expected that Ingersoll — equal 
in fiction to any of them — should prove an excep- 
tion to the rule. It is expecting too much. We 
should take the best he can give us with thankful- 
ness, and remember the old Irish fiddler who knew 
but two tunes. When requested to play he would 
ask: "Which '1 you have?" With the doughty 
Colonel when attacking Christianity, it is a ques- 
tion of which '1 ye have, Moses, Skulls, Gods, or 
Ghosts, or will an olla podrida of tidbids from all of 
them do? But whichever he may grind out, there 
is always a monotonous sameness of grind that is 
suggestive of a perambulating crank organ. 

The only' objection that one can reasonably urge 
to these repetitions is that they put one to the tire- 
some necessity of repeating the same refutations 
with the same music-box regularity, and then it 
becomes a question of who has the strongest lungs 
or the most tireless pen. I shall, however, try to 
introduce some variations to break the monotony. 

It is not difficult to meet Mr. Ingersoll' s general 
arguments, his main, leading thought, but there is 
a subtle, crafty vein of sophism and implication 
running through them all which cannot be met by 
a reply to his main propositions. These shadowy, 



3 2 



INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 



sinuous, winding, tortuous sophisms and implica- 
tions, suggestive of the sardonic grin of a lurking 
Mephistopheles, must be met in some way. And 
the only possible way, it seems to me, is to separate 
his arguments into their component sentences, as 
the haymaker lifts sodden hay with his fork to let 
the sunlight and air purify, dry and shrivel it. 
His sentences thus separated and cleaned of their 
sophistry, we can look at them, see what they are 
worth, and value them accordingly. 

This method I made use of on a former occasion 
in replying to Mr. Ingersoll's article on Judge 
Black. It is convenient, and, I believe, fair all 
around. I shall extenuate nothing or set nothing 
down in malice, but shall let Mr. Ingersoll speak 
for himself. 

Now, Mr. Editor, after this short preface, I will 
introduce Mr. Ingersoll to your audience. Step 
forth, Colonel, and let us talk. 

Ingersoll. — If he (De Costa) by Christianity 
means kindness, candor, the spirit of investigation, 
observation, reason, — in other words, if he aggre- 
gates what are called the virtues and calls them 
" Christianity," — then there is no need to dispute. 

Lambert. — Beg pardon; there will still be need 
for dispute or for better information. An aggre- 
gate of virtues does not and cannot constitute 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 33 

Christianity or any other religion, any mere than 
an aggregate of virtues constitutes a man, or an ag- 
gregate of different forces constitutes a locomotive, 
or an aggregate of brick, wood, and mortar consti- 
tutes a house. Virtue is a force or a facility of 
doing a thing with ease, arising from the doing of 
that thing many times, so many times as to acquire 
a habit of doing it. Kindness, candor, truthful- 
ness, and the other moral virtues, are habits of mind 
growing out of frequent repetition of acts of kind- 
ness, candor, truthfulness. A truthful man is one 
who has acquired the habit of telling the truth and 
can do it without effort, so that even when speak- 
ing against Christianity he can tell it without dan- 
ger of dislocating his jaw or bursting a blood vessel. 
We may then define virtue as a habit of mind 
inclining a man and making it easy for him to do 
good and act rightly. You can now see how these 
" habits of mind " may constitute a man good and 
religious, while they cannot constitute him a man, 
and why, taken altogether, they cannot constitute a 
religion or Christianity. Christianity teaches us all 
these virtues and exhorts us to practice them. That, 
together with the office of teaching revealed truth, 
is the mission of the Church of Christ, that Church 
which you are doing your best to discredit and dis- 
honor. Virtue qualifies the man — it is a mode of 
I.C.S.— 3 



34 



INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 



his being. It is to him what the adjective is to the 
noun, and you need not be told that an aggregate of 
all the adjectives in language cannot constitute a 
noun. So you will see that the hypothetical case 
you put to Dr. De Costa is the pink and perfection 
of absurdity. You may now proceed. 

Ingersoll. — Every religion teaches a code of morals 
plus something else. 

Lambert. — Every religion first teaches truth, or 
what it believes to be truth, for without this as a 
basis or foundation no code of morals can exist. 
For instance, religion must first teach the existence 
of God before it can teach his will, law or revela- 
tion, as without the former the latter cannot be. 
From this first truth of philosophy, as well as of 
religion, arises the moral law ; all morality, as the 
fruit of the tree, springs from its roots. Thus reli- 
gion teaches us a fundamental principle, the exis- 
tence of a Supreme Being, and that morality is 
founded on the relation between this Infinite In- 
telligence and finite intelligences, and that from 
this relation arises the duties, obligations, respon- 
sibilities and rights of man. These constitute the 
moral law or code. Without this Being there can 
be no moral code. I do not mean to say that those 
who deny the existence of this Being have no rule 
of conduct, but if they have a rule it is a borrowed 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



35 



one, a code not deduced from their own principles, 
but taken surreptitiously from that fundamental 
principle of Christianity, the existence of the Be- 
ing Whom we call God, which they ostentatiously 
deny. To come back, you will observe that in- 
stead of every religion teaching a moral code plus 
something else, every religion begins with a funda- 
mental truth, and then something else — the moral 
law. You simply change the idea. 

Ingersoll. — Buddhism is a code of morals. 

Lambert. — A moment ago you said : " Every re- 
ligion teaches a code of morals." You now say the 
religion of Buddha is a code of morals. This con- 
fusion of utterance arises from a confusion of ideas. 
If your ideas are clear, you certainly have the abil- 
ity to put them into clear English. A code of 
morals is no more a religion than the Declaration 
of Independence is the present administration, or 
the constitution of the United States, the govern- 
ment of the United States. Can you not get this 
distinction into your head? Buddhism is a religion 
which teaches certain doctrines on which it bases a 
certain code of morals. This distinction being 
evident, your whole argument based on your con- 
fusion of ideas, falls to the ground. 

Ingersoll. — So Christianity is a code of morals 
plus — 



36 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

Lambert. — Tut, tut, man ; be reasonable. Don't 
repeat that blunder. 

Ingersoll. — Plus that the God of the Old Testa- 
ment is the Creator of the Universe. 

Lambert. — Christianity teaches, first, a truth — 
the existence of the Supreme, Infinite, Eternal Be- 
ing, on Whose existence, nature and relation to man 
it bases the Christian code of morals. You may 
call this Being the God of this, that, or the other, if 
you think it serves your purpose, but keep well in 
mind what Christianity teaches. The Being is the 
God of all that is, old or new, the Christian, the 
Jew and the pagan. But what you really meant to 
insinuate was this: The God of Christians is the 
same God Who, according to you, approved of all 
the murders, crimes and cruelties recorded in the 
Old Testament. According to your idea, this God 
is a monster. But you must pardon me if I decline 
to accept your account of Him or your "idea" of 
Him. I once reviewed your statements on this 
subject and showed that you misquoted, misrepre- 
sented and tortured out of their natural and obvious 
sense many texts of the Old Testament. I called 
that review, "Notes on Ingersoll." You made no 
reply to it. When Mr. Palmer, of the Nineteenth 
Century Club, proposed to you to discuss Chris- 
tianity before that club, you expressed a willingness 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 37 

to do so, and asked who was to take the other side. 
He suggested my name and you declined, assigning 
as a reason that I was a Casuist. Mr. Palmer, I 
need not say, made that proposal to you without 
my knowledge or consent. If he had proposed to 
me an oral discussion with you I should have de- 
clined, for the reason that I have more faith in the 
virtue of cold type. I make the above statement on 
the authority of General George A. Sheridan. Gen- 
eral Sheridan — unlike Moses and Judge Black — is 
not dead; and he has the advantage over them, that 
he can speak for himself."* Mentioning General 
Sheridan moves me to say that his lecture on 
4 'The Modern Pagan" is one of the best replies to 
Ingersollism that has been made. But to return — 

* When I made the above statement, it occurred to me 
that " Slippery Bob " might be tempted to deny its truth as he 
denied some matters in relation to Judge Black — after his 
death. I therefore communicated with General Sheridan 
and received from him a letter from which I take the fol- 
lowing extract : — 

London, England, March 6, 1892. 
23 Bedford Place, Russell Square, W. C. 
My Dear Father: — 

. . . As to the matter of } T our telegram, A. C. Wheeler was iny first 
informant. Mr. Palmer afterwards confirmed his statement. My rec- 
ollection is that the reason he gave for not meeting you was that you 
were " a mere Casuist." 

Sincerely your friend, 

Geo. A. Sheridan. 

The Wheeler here referred to is the well-known art critic 
of the New York World. I am thus particular about this 
as it gives Ingersoll's shallow followers the rare opportunity 
of seeing how their Prophet looks with his mouth shut. 



3 8 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

Ingersoll. — Christianity is a code of morals . . . 
plus certain ceremonies and superstitions. 

Lambert. — We have already seen that neither 
Christianity nor any other religion is, or can be, a 
code of morals. Ceremonies are external signs or 
symbols indicative of the interior thought or be- 
lief, whether the belief be true or false. They 
symbolize what religion, true or false, believes to 
be true. Hence all ceremonies in the last analysis 
rest on truth, or what one believes to be truth. 
They are, therefore, plus to truth, not plus to a 
moral code, as you say. Be good enough to re- 
member that a code of morals is not truth, but 
a sequence of truth. You may say these are small 
matters ; but many of your conclusions are the 
result of an aggregate of small errors injected 
ignorantly or otherwise into your main line of ar- 
gument, and it is my task just now to show that 
all your arguments against Christianity are thor- 
oughly salted and peppered with just such small 
matters. That is what makes it so tiresome lo 
reply to you, when one of your paragraphs, crammed 
with sophisms of speech and thought, requires a 
column to let light and air through it. So much 
for ceremonies, now for superstitions. 

kk Superstition" is one of the most useful words 
in the agnostic dictionary. It is hard to imagine 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 39 

how infidels could get on without it. It is such 
an excellent argument : , so handy to throw in to fill 
a vacuum. It generally comes in as a tail to In- 
gersoll's list of Christian delinquencies. It is the 
cracker on the end of the whip to round off a sen- 
tence with a snap. 

We have to say of superstition what we have said 
of ceremonies — that it cannot be plus to or predi- 
cated of a code of morals. Superstition, in all its 
multifarious forms, arises from a false belief or a 
false apprehension of true belief. Hence, its refer- 
ence is to the true or the false, and not to the good 
or the bad. Now, Christianity teaches the truth. 
This proposition must stand until you disprove it, 
and do not forget that the onus probandi is on 
you.* As Christianity teaches the truth it affords 



*As a correspondent in the Evening Telegram questioned 
the correctness of this statement, I will here show why I 
made it. It is a well-known maxim, as sound in logic as in 
jurisprudence, that possession is nine points of the law. 
Christianity is in possession — is the common belief in the 
civilized world. Our customs, habits of thought, laws, 
national and international, and the foundations of our gov- 
ernments rest on the teachings of Christianity. So, right 
or wrong, true or false, it is a fact that Christianity is in 
possession, and therefore he who would dispossess it must 
show cause why it should be dispossessed. It other words, 
the onus probandi is on him. When Christianity came into 
the world paganism was in possession, and as a consequence 
the onus proba?idi was on Christianity. It supplied the 
proof and in time took possession and has held it for cen- 



4° 



INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 



no basis for superstition to rest on. The individ- 
ual Christian apprehends correctly the truth as 
taught by Christianity or he does not. If he does 
he is not superstitious for he believes the truth as 
it is. If he does not apprehend the truth as taught 
by Christianity, he may fall into superstitious 
errors, but in that case his superstitions must be 
attributed to himself, not to Christianity which 
did not teach him his errors. The question then 
resolves itself into, whether Christianity teaches 
truth or not. By truth, I mean all truth of the 
moral order as contradistinguished from truths of 
the physical order. It won't do to say Christianity 
favors superstition and then pass on to argue as if 
the point were conceded. You must prove your 
statement and give us a bill of particulars. When 






turies and holds it now. In face of this it is too late to de- 
mand title deeds. As a matter of fact, however, Christianity 
does supply these deeds. They are found in all theological 
and philosophical Christian literature. 

But if Christianity does this it is not that it is, at this day, 
logically bound to do it. The question here is of logical 
obligation, whether the onus lies with the Christian or with 
him who would oust Christianity from possession. When a 
man makes an assertion contrary to the common belief, it 
is his duty to give good reasons in its support. If he cannot, 
he should give up his assertion and go back to the common 
belief. Common beliefs, on the contrary, are in no need of 
special demonstration so long as they are not attacked by 
plausible reasons. Where Christianity is the common be- 
lief, the infidel has no logical right to demand the grounds 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



4 1 



you do so, we will consider whether they are super- 
stitions or not. 

Webster defines superstition as "an excessive 
reverence or fear of that which is unknown or 
mysterious." Do you pretend that Christianity 
teaches, favors or winks at what is defined here? 
Excessive fear is the attribute of a coward ; that 
cringing, slavish, craven fear which make a soldier 
slink from the ranks of his brave fellows and sneak 
under cover, or that fear which makes a cur throw 
himself on his back at the sight of a threatening 
cane. Christianity frowns on that fear which pre- 
vents a man from doing his duty, whether in the 
battle of brigades or the battle of life, and exalts 
moral courage as one of the noble attributes of 
man. But there is a fear that is noble and wise. 



of that common belief. It is for him to show cause why 
that common belief should be abandoned. The onus is on 
him. Presumption is always in favor of possession, in logic 
as well as in law. Again, presumption is in favor of inno- 
cence till guilt is proved, and the first step to remove a sup- 
posed evil is to prove it is an evil. It is not for the supposed 
evil — so long as it is in possession — to prove that it is 
a good. The fact that it is in possession, necessitates the 
production of reasons why it should be removed. The onus 
is on him who would remove it. This is the logical situa- 
tion in a discussion between the Christian and the infidel. 
It won't do for the infidel to shout out to the human race : 
" Prove the existence of God." The race has at all times 
and places believed in the existence of God, and it is the 
duty of the infidel to show cause why he makes himself an 



42 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

It is that fear which the Scriptures tell us is the 
"beginning of wisdom." This is the fear of a 
brave man who dreads disgrace or fears death in 
an unworthy cause. The truly brave man is not 
he who fears no danger, but the man whose mind 
subdues the fear and braves the danger that nature 
shrinks from, when duty calls. Marlborough once 
said on going into action: "This poor body trem- 
bles at what the mind within is about to do." 
Fortitude and sense of duty should go hand in 
hand with fear and regulate it, not destroy it. The 
fear of God which Christianity inspires is in no 
way inconsistent with the dignity of man. It is a 
rational and proper fear inseparable from that 
august reverence which a finite intelligence expe- 
riences in the presence of the Infinite Intelligence, 



exception to this common belief. If he gives good reasons 
they will be considered, but the world will not stop to give 
him a reason why it believes as it does. In all properly con- 
stituted canines the dog wags the tail. The advocates of 
Christianity are too apt to permit themselves to be thrown 
on the defensive and assume the onus frobandi. When the 
infidel loudly informs the world that he does not believe 
there is a God, he should be asked for his reasons, and those 
reasons should be examined and refuted, but no attempt 
should be made to prove to him what the human race has 
always and everywhere believed. Keep him strictly to the 
logic of his position. Make him produce the proofs. Per- 
sist in this line of discussion and in a very short time he will 
be an exceedingly uninteresting passenger. - 

He who would change an existing order of things must 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 43 

and on apprehending the relation in which it 
stands to Him. There is no superstition about 
this. Cringing, craven fear is not pleasing to the 
Supreme Being because it is an unworthy and false 
worship of Him, beneath the dignity of man, and 
is only found in those in whom brute nature pre- 
dominates. The fear of hell is a rational fear, and 
is no more inconsistent with manliness in man than 
is the fear which inspires one to step from the 
track to avoid an advancing locomotive. 

It is natural to man to avoid danger, and he 
should always do so unless duty requires him to 
brave it. While Christianity teaches a wholesome 
fear of eternal punishment, it does not offer it as 
the best motive of obedience to God, or of an hon- 
est and virtuous life. It teaches that love is the 
prime motive of human action, while fear is sec- 
ondary and subsidiary. Our Lord said: "Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, 

assume the burden of showing why that order should be 
changed, just as he who would move a body at rest must 
bring to bear sufficient force to put that body in motion It 
is not for that body to give reasons why it should not be 
moved. In the laws of physics the fact that it is at rest is 
reason sufficient why it should remain so. Christianity is 
the order of the civilized world, and he who would change 
that order must assume the onus probandi. These are the 
reasons why I said, when the infidel attacks Christianity the 
onus proband! is on him. 



44 



INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 



with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength, 
and thy neighbor as thyself." And St. Paul says : 
4 'All the law is fulfilled in one sentence. Love 
thy neighbor as thyself." Texts of this intention 
are scattered all through the Scriptures, but your 
intellectual strabismus will not permit you to see 
them. This is the love which Christianity incul- 
cates as the first, truest and noblest motive to avoid 
evil and do good. And the fear which the same 
religion presents to us as a motive to do good and' 
avoid evil, is that fear which the child has of the 
father it loves, the fear to offend, the fear to lose 
his love and break that golden chain that binds 
their hearts in mutual affection. But enough of 
this at present. I have made this digression, sug- 
gested by Webster's definition of superstition, be- 
cause you are constantly representing Christianity 
as inculcating a slavish, cringing, craven fear, and 
that Our Father Who is in heaven smiles on this 
base, degrading abjection as Moloch smiles on 
flowing blood and quivering flesh. 

Ingersoll. — No one objects to the morality of 
Christianity. 

Lambert. — There is a suspicious frankness about 
this, and the reader may bet a nickle with himself 
that there is a hook to it. It is always well to 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 45 

suspect excessively pious pretensions and excessive 
frankness, for a hypocrite may lurk under either. 
It is the very frankness of the confidence man that 
disarms his victims. 

Ingersoll. — The industrious people of the world — 
those who have anything — are, as a rule, opposed 
to larceny. 

Lambert. — I knew it ; and now, reader, you may 
put your nickel in your other vest pocket. It is 
not Christian morals that larceny is wrong because 
people object to it, and in insinuating the idea you 
misrepresent Christian theology. It is wrong be- 
cause God Almighty objects, and He objects be- 
cause it is antagonistic to His own eternal justice. 
This is the Christian idea, and you will observe it 
is very different from your idea, which is absurd, 
for if the wrong of larceny consisted in people's 
objecting it would be equally wrong to collect debts, 
for most people object to it; equally wrong to col- 
lect taxes for the same reason. So you will see 
that the sense in which you agree with Christian 
morality is not the sense in which Christianity en- 
forces it. When you thought you were agreeing 
you were not, and in this you possibly deceived 
even yourself. Will you please give your idea of 
right and wrong, and tell us the ultimate principle 
on which you base the distinction between them; 



46 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

in other words, what is your standard of right and 
wrong ? 

Ingersoll. — Consequences determine the quality 
of actions. If consequences are good, so is the 
action. 

Lambert. — Then the question whether larency is 
a good or a bad act must remain unanswered until 
the consequences of the act are definitely known. 
The man whose pocketbook was stolen must be 
cheerful and patient and wait for the consequences 
before he can know whether he has been wronged 
or not, or whether after all the thief did not do a 
good act. The loss of the money has lost him his 
farm and sent him and his wife and little ones 
barefooted and hungry into the highway to face 
the pitiless blasts of winter, and made the babe 
cry in vain for the breast that hunger had made 
powerless to nourish it. Surely suffering has come 
as a consequence of the act — but not to the thief, 
whose experience we will see later on. In this 
state of awful desolation the poor farmer meets 
Mr. Ingersoll and says : " Oh, sir, see the horror of 
my situation! Do you think that thief did wrong to 
bring upon me this suffering? See my wife, her 
eyes are dull and stupid from cold and hunger, 
sir! See that babe, how it clings to the sapless 
breast! God help it, it is more fortunate than its 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



47 



father; it suffers without consciousness of suffering 
and will die without knowing that it ever lived in 
this world. Thanks be to the good God, it has 
not my consciousness to take in all this horror that 
God never intended me or mine to suffer! But see, 
it is dying — it is dead, dead, and the stupid mother 
knows it not. Oh, Mr. Ingersoll, did not that man 
do me a woeful wrong ?" To this appeal you would 
reply, if you are true to your principles: "I do 
not know if he did wrong or not; I must w^ait to 
see the consequences of his act, I must wait and see 
how his act affects him. If he has done wrong 
Nature will punish him, but I cannot know whether 
he did wrong or not till I know the consequences 
of his act. Yours is only one side of the case. 
I must see his family, and his children's children's 
children and so on indefinitely or infinitely before I 
can give an honest opinion about it." The wife 
dies, the children go to the poorhouse, and the 
father to the madhouse, and thus ends that side. 
Now for the thief. 

Court opens. Policeman produces prisoner, who 
admits fact, but claims he did not do wrong. Judge 
(Ingersollian) announces that prisoner's plea bars 
Court from further action, till all the consequences 
of his act are known, since on these depend his in- 
nocence or guilt. Prisoner released for want of 



48 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

evidence; must await evidence — the consequences 
of his act, all of which are not yet known. Inger- 
soll offers to testify to consequences he has seen. 
His evidence taken and recorded. Court adjourns 
for further evidence — consequences not all in yet. 
How long must they wait? Now, Mr. Ingersoll, 
as you are strong on the sciences, you know that 
not a particle of matter, in any part of the material 
universe, can be moved without affecting every 
other particle of matter in the same universe ; that 
when you toss the ashes from your cigar you 
change the course of the moon, the sun and all the 
planets and suns, visible and invisible, that move 
in silence through space; and that the perturbation 
you produce will prevent all these from ever being 
again as they were before. Can you or anybody 
calculate and sum up the physical consequences 
of your act, the net result, in all the countless aeons 
of time to come ? It may seem strange that the 
fall of a bit of ashes or the movement of a fly's 
wing can produce such an endless commotion, but 
science, you know, leaves no doubt of it. Just 
here, Mr. Ingersoll, I must ask you if the goodness 
or badness of the thief's act is to be known by 
its physical or moral consequences. If you say 
by the physical, I reply that from the scientific 
facts I have just given, it is absolutely impossible 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



49 



to know, in time or eternity, whether the thief did 
a good or a bad thing. And a code of morals that 
leaves things in that condition is not fit for a luna- 
tic asylum. 

If you say the goodness or badness of the thief's 
act depends on moral consequences, I reply that, 
judging by analogy from what we know by expe- 
rience and science, we must conclude that the moral 
world is governed by the same laws that govern 
the physical world. And if you grant this, which, 
as a scientist, you know is perfectly scientific, we 
will have to go through the same endless round as 
in the case of the ashes and fly's wing. But you 
may deny this analogy. Well, then, I will let it 
pass and take your own theory, that all there is is 
matter, and that all phenomena known to us, 
whether moral, intellectual or physical, are nothing 
but forms of matter. From this dogma of yours it 
evidently follows that the physical, moral, intellec- 
tual worlds are governed by the same law. Then 
what I have said of the endless consequences of a 
physical act is equally true of a moral act. Let us 
now see the consequences of the thief's act in the 
moral world, and try if we can ever know them. 
The act of the thief from the moment of its doing 
will begin and continue to work out its conse- 
quences, — by which its goodness or badness is to 
I.C.S.— 4 



5o 



INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 



be known, — and the moral world will never be the 
same as it was before the thieving act. The moral 
wave, put in motion by the thief, will roll on for- 
ever, now meeting opposing billows, now swerv- 
ing at an unknowable angle, and, baffled, turning 
its course elsewhere, but never again to find that 
equilibrium and rest in which the thief found it 
before his act. Now, if your theory of right and 
wrong be true, it can never be known in the moral 
world whether the thief did a good thing or a bad, 
till the moral consequences of his acts are summed 
up and the net result known. This summing up 
becomes the more difficult if we count in the con- 
sequences, physical and moral, to the poor farmer, 
and what remains of his wrecked family. But 
what of the court and the thief? Why, the court 
may adjourn to eternity and the plaintiff and the 
jury be damned, and yet the plain question : Did 
the thief do wrong? must remain forever unan- 
swered. 

In this age of reason and common sense is it 
really necessary to refute such a standard of judg- 
ment in morals? A standard, to be of any value 
whatever, must enable a man to tell the nature of 
an act when he is required or tempted to do it — 
before he does it, that he may do it if good or re- 
frain from doing it if bad. To know this after- 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



5 1 



wards is too late to be of any benefit to him. And 
life is too short to await the consequences. We 
have seen the end of the poor farmer and his fam- 
ily. We will now see how the thief got on after 
his act. The Court reopens. The thief is there, 
hale, hearty, fat and chipper. Ingersollian Judge 
on the bench : — 

Court. — Mr. Prisoner, you are accused of having 
done wrong. You are an intelligent-looking man ; 
in fact, you are a sharp-looking man. You look 
like a man who can take care of himself and get 
on in this villainous world. You have the appear- 
ance of a prosperous man. You are fat, which 
shows that your fellow-citizens have implicit con- 
fidence in you, else they would not have elected 
you an Alderman. You look happy and contented, 
which shows that within your ample being there 
dwells a peaceful, loving, agnostic kind , of a 
spirit — if you happen to have any. But under 
present circumstances I feel for you. You stand 
in the prisoner's box humiliated. I would feel 
rather badly if I were in your place, and I am glad 
I am not. But, being like yourself an agnostic, I 
don't know for certain, I feel for you, — at least I 
think I do, — but I may be wrong. I never traveled 
in any other world but this, and I am, in conse- 
quence, provincial. I cannot see clearly how a just 



5 2 



INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 



and powerful government, which you could not 
hurt, even if you tried ever so hard, can have the 
heart to put you to any inconvenience. But this 
is a bloodthirsty Christian government, and we've 
got to keep our eyes open wide or they will perse- 
cute us. Do you take in the idea? They will per- 
secute us ; yes, persecute. They spell it prosecute, 
not knowing better. They will stop at nothing, 
these bloody-handed minions of priestcraft and 
superstition. It is a happy circumstance that you 
are not a scientist, for they have a hankering after 
raw scientist. You are an artist, however, and 
that is why you are here. If you know anything 
don't let them remark it, or burned brandy and 
brimstone won't save you. Speaking of brandy 
reminds me that time is passing, and without fur- 
ther remarks, Mr. Prisoner, we will pass on to busi- 
ness. You are charged with doing wrong, what 
is your plea? 

Thief. — Your Honor, the police, those tools of a 
steel-hearted tyranny, inspired by the fiendish, 
diabolical and blood-guzzling genius of Christian- 
ity, with hands reeking with the blood of scien- 
tists, brought me here, and charge me with having 
done wrong — yes, wrong, your Honor. (Here 
prisoner gives way to his feelings and the Judge 
shows emotion.) 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 53 

Court. — What did you do? 

Thief. — 1 stole $5,000, your Honor. 

Court. — And what were the consequences? 

Thief. — With the money I bought a house, a new 
suit of clothes all round for my wife and little ones, 
and some candy for the baby. Your Honor's heart 
would have melted if you had seen how that baby's 
eyes danced and how his little chubby legs kicked 
when he saw it. He's an agnostic baby, your 
Honor. 

Court. — May the court, without offense, ask why 
you think so ; that is, you don't object ? 

Thief. — No objection in the world, your Honor. 
The little tootsy-wootsy actually put it in his mouth 
without missing. A Christian baby sticks it in his 
ear. 

Court. — Or eye — practicing to stick redhot iron 
into other people's eyes and ears, — shows the in- 
stinct early. Persecution in the blood. But, pris- 
oner, did you get all this happiness out of your 
theft ? 

Thief. — Yes, your Honor, these were the happy 
consequences of my little operation. 

Court. — Gentlemen of the jury, this case is so 
clear and pellucid that I do not think it necessary 
to impose on your powerful minds the burden of 
giving a verdict. The prisoner frankly admits that 



54 



INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 



he stole. This frankness is to be highly commended, 
being so seldom found, except among agnostics. If 
there is anything under the ethereal blue that this 
Court admires more than another, it is candor and 
courage of the soul. These qualities are not always 
found in thieves, I am sorry to say. 

This thief, then, is, to quote the words of the 
immortal Latin bard, whose name I forget, and you, 
gentlemen of the jury, probably never knew, a rara 
avis in terris. He admits he committed the theft 
charged, but claims that it was the result of free 
thought, and that in realizing his free thought he 
was under the necessity of making free with farmer 
Jones' pocketbook. He claims that the theft had 
the happiest consequences, and that therefore it 
was a good act. In doing it he had an eye single 
and honest to the happiness of his family. He has 
pictured before you a scene of domestic felicity as 
the result of his theft which, stealing on the imagi- 
nation, leads us to believe that all virtue is not 
extinct. He has painted before our mind's eye, 
with all the skill of a Raphael or an Angelo, — who 
were great in spite of their Christianity, — a picture 
of his happy family circle living on the money of 
Mr. Jones. Nothing but the happiest consequences 
have followed from the action of this candid thief. 
Prisoner, you can go; your act was good and praise- 






REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



55 



worthy, as Mr. Ingersoll will tell you, on account 
of its consequences. The officer who arrested you 
will pay the costs, and make an apology or take the 
consequences. 

Lambert. — Your standard of morality, Mr. Inger- 
soll, may suit the agnostic, but it does not com- 
mend itself to a plain, common-sense Christian 
people. 

Ingersoll. — A large majority of people object to 
being murdered. 

Lambert. — But their objection does not constitute 
the malice of murder. Murder would be equally 
wrong even if the victim consented. You are in- 
consistent in saying a murder is bad, until you know 
all the consequences of it, for in these, you tell us, 
its nature or quality is to be sought. The malice of 
murder, according to Christian teaching, consists in 
the fact that it is an outrage on the universe and its 
Creator, a war against universal order and harmony, 
a clash with the divine will. The murderer mali- 
ciously destroys a most perfect work of the Supreme 
Artist. 

Ingersoll. — There is no very great difference of 
opinion among civilized people as to what is or is 
not moral. 

Lambert. — One reason of that is, that most civil- 
ized people pay no attention to your philosophy or 



56 INGERSOLL' S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

to your moral standard. The great majority of 
civilized people are Christians, they have the Ten 
Commandments, and that is the reason why they 
do not differ as to what is or is not moral. 

Ingersoll. — It cannot be truthfully said that the 
man who attacks Buddhism attacks all morality. 

Lambert. — You attack a religion when you at- 
tack its doctrines. If you attack the doctrines or 
dogmas of Buddhism you attack the moral code 
based on those doctrines. 

Ingersoll. — So, one attacking what is called Chris- 
tianity does not attack kindness, charity, or any 
other virtue. 

Lambert.— You attack these virtues when you 
destroy the motives of them. You attack them 
when you destroy the reason of their being. When 
you deny God and hold the doctrine of unavoid- 
able fate, you take away all the motives of virtuous 
acts. Since, if they are necessary acts, they cease 
to be virtues. The virtues cannot exist where there 
is no free will, where our thoughts grow out of 
what we eat, as you teach. Christianity teaches us 
the existence of a Supreme Being Who holds us 
responsible for our acts, and rewards or punishes 
us for them. Hence, when you attack these funda- 
mental truths of Christianity, you destroy those 
virtues, as you would destroy a house by removing 



REVIEWED BY L. A. LAMBERT. 57 

its foundation, or as you would kill the branches 
by cutting down the tree. The virtues are the 
bloom and fruit of truth worked out in human 
action. 

Ingersoll. — He attacks something that has been 
added to the virtues. 

Lambert. — This begs the question. Before at- 
tacking this " something that has been added to 
the virtues" you should show what it is — give a 
bill of particulars, that we may see about them. 
If Christianity teaches the truths, from which all 
the virtues flow as a result, it should receive the 
credit. 

Ingersoll. — There were millions of virtuous men 
and women before Christianity was known. 

Lambert.- — No doubt of it. But the foundation 
of their virtues was the belief in the existence of 
the Supreme Being, and obedience to His law writ- 
ten on the heart of every man that comes into this 
world. That same law and the existence of that 
same Being are what Christianity teaches. The 
Commandments were only reiterated on Mount 
Sinai. It is very certain that those millions of vir- 
tuous men and women you speak of were not made 
so by agnostic philosophy. 

Ingersoll. — It does not seem possible to me that 
love, kindness, justice or charity ever caused any 



58 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

one who possessed and practiced these virtues to 
persecute his fellowman on account of a difference 
of belief. 

Lambert. — Christianity inculcates kindness, char- 
ity, truthfulness, justice, etc. If a Christian fails 
to practice these virtues, the fault is his own and 
cannot be attributed to the religion whose teachings 
he disregards. You harp much on persecutions for 
difference of belief. I do not believe that any per- 
secution ever took place for a mere difference of 
belief. There was always difference of belief plus 
something else. It is a fact of human nature that 
no man can attempt to overthrow the fixed maxims 
and beliefs of any people without getting himself 
into trouble. Belief produces in man corresponding 
external acts. By these external acts a man may 
come in collision with somebody else or with the 
laws of society. Then comes the trouble. As long 
as the Southern people believed in the right of 
secession, no one interfered with them. When that 
belief took the shape of muskets and artillery, the 
Government crushed it out. It would not be true 
to say that war was made on them on account of a 
difference of belief. The Mormons believe in polyg- 
amy. As long as they did not practice the belief, 
they were let alone. When they put it into prac- 
tice, Congress legislated against it and punished the 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT, -q, 

guilty. They say they are persecuted for their be- 
lief, but you know it is not true. We can under- 
stand how good, kind and just men will oppose 
and persecute them if they disregard the law. Our 
Government does not legislate against Anarchists 
but when some Anarchists put their belief into prac- 
tice in Chicago they were hanged. They call it 
persecution. Apply these suggestions to the history 
of the past and you will find that difference in belief, 
was not the cause of persecutions, but belief plus 
something else which was opposed to the maxims 
and customs of the people. Connected with belief 
there were practices which offended society and 
aroused opposition and bloodshed. Hence, all the 
talk of persecution for difference of belief is mere 
cant. 

Ingersoll. — If Christianity has persecuted, some 
reason must exist outside the virtues inculcated. 

Lambert. — As Christianity did not persecute, it 
is needless to seek reasons why she did. Whether 
some Christian peoples persecuted is another ques- 
tion. And I deny that Christian peoples perse- 
cuted for difference of belief alone. I have given 
the reason above. The cause of persecution must 
be sought outside of the truths and principles incul- 
cated by Christianity. 

Ingersoll. — If this cause is inherent in something 



60 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

else, which has been added to the ordinary virtues, 
then Christianity can properly be held accountable 
for the persecution. 

Lambert. — Nego sufifiositum. Unless Christian- 
ity added this mysterious " something else" to the 
ordinary virtues, it cannot properly be held account- 
able for persecutions. It is denied that Christianity 
added this, which you slyly assume. 

Ingersoll. — Of course, back of Christianity is the 
nature of man, and, primarily, it may be responsible. 

Lambert. — Here I think you have struck bottom. 
Human nature, as found concreted in the individual 
man, has both good and bad impulses, appetites 
and emotions. One moment he drops the tear of 
pity on the brow of pain, the next moment, mad- 
dened by passion, he plunges the knife into the 
heart of his victim. His blood is feverish and rest- 
less, his darkened mind caters to a weakened will 
and always finds some pretense to justify him when 
he strikes the cruel blow. Sometimes he will pre- 
tend that his act is inspired by zeal for religion ; at 
other times, love of liberty nerved his blood-seeking 
hand. An excuse never fails him. Sometimes he 
seeks cover under candor, honor bright, courage of 
the soul, etc., etc. He steals the livery of all these 
to cover his real motive, but when he ascribes his 
evil deeds to any or all these, he is a hypocrite. It 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 6 1 

is a case of non causa fro causa. Christianity 
endeavors to instruct this bundle of impulses called 
man, to supply him with principles and motives of 
action, to regulate his actions ; in a word to edu- 
cate, soften, refine and civilize him. But it is hard 
to do, and false teachers and false philosophers make 
it still more difficult. 

Ingersoll. — Is there anything in Christianity to 
account for such persecutions — the Inquisition? 

Lambert. — No, there is not. We have found in 
fallen human nature the cause of it, and need seek 
no further. 

But the Inquisition? He who studies the his- 
tory of Spain in the fifteenth century will be con- 
vinced that the Court of the Inquisition was a 
proper and necessary measure to prevent the de- 
struction of the Spanish nation. Every govern- 
ment has the right to take the necessary measures 
to defend its existence. No one, not even revolu- 
tionists, will deny this political maxim. During 
our late war President Lincoln proclaimed several 
States under martial law. The sympathizers with 
the revolt made a howl about it and shouted tyr- 
anny, despotism. But no one now thinks of 
doubting the justice and necessity of the great 
President's act in proclaiming martial law. The 
ordinary courts and processes are for times of 



62 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

peace. They were not quick and thorough enough 
to meet the case and deal promptly and swiftly 
with treason and conspiracy. But. treason and 
conspiracy must be met when the life of a nation 
is in peril. At a time when the existence of Spain 
was in peril, Ferdinand and Isabella established 
the Court of the Inquisition, or Court of Inquiry, to 
meet and overcome the political evils of the times. 
It is a political axiom that no sensible man ever 
denied that great political evils, and especially 
violent acts leveled at the body of the State, can 
never be repelled except by 7?zeasures equally violent. 
The rule of ancient Rome is the standard by which 
danger to the state must be measured and met. 
Videant consules ne respublica dctrimentum capiat. 
Let the consuls see that the government sustain no 
injury. The most successful means to meet and 
crush revolution is invariably the best. These 
measures may differ at different times, owing to 
circumstances and degrees of civilization, but the 
rule always stands good. 

But it was in the name of religion, you say. 
Religion, through circumstances, was made the 
war cry, just as liberty is made the war cry, or the 
rose the war cry between the houses of York and 
Lancaster. It matters little what the shibboleth 
may be, when men, white with passion, clinch. 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 63 

But they punished heretics ! When heresy be- 
came a synonym of treason, conspiracy and rebel- 
lion, it was punished as such. The Spanish state 
struck the traitor, conspirator and revolutionist 
wherever it found him, heretic or not. History 
shows that treason and heresy were intimately allied 
at the time. But why not strike the heretic who 
is a traitor to the state? Should his heresy be a 
shield for his treason ? There is a great deal of 
maudlin sentiment wasted on the victims of the 
Inquisition. The Inquisition was a political in- 
stitution — a court martial — established to meet a 
great danger to the state, and it ceased to exist 
when the danger ceased. 

But the cruelties of it? That cruelties were 
committed there is no doubt, but abuse is insep- 
arable from the exercise of absolute power in the 
hands of men. But if we must condemn the court 
for the cruelties of a Torquemada, we must also 
condemn the whole fabric of English jurisprudence 
for the cruelties of a Jeffreys or a Norbury. 

Ingersoll. — It certainly was taught by the Church 
that belief was necessary to salvation. 

Lambert. — And is still so taught. 

Ingersoll.- — And it was thought at the same time 
that the fate of man was eternal punishment. 

Lambert. — This statement is not true. And even 



64 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

if it were so thought, Christianity is not responsi- 
ble, as it taught no such doctrine. 

Ingersoll. — It was taught that the state of man 
was that of depravity, and that there was but one 
way by which he could be saved, and that was 
through faith. 

Lambert. — The Church taught that man was 
saved by faith and good works, which are the 
flower and fruit of faith. Salvation is the reward 
of these two, going hand in hand. 

Ingersoll. — As long as this was honestly be- 
lieved — 

Lambert. — As if one could dishonestly believe! 

Ingersoll. — Christians would not allow heretics 
or infidels to preach a doctrine to their wives, to 
their children, or to themselves, which, in their 
judgment, would result in the damnation of their 
souls. 

Lambert. — And why should they allow it? Do 
you believe that any "honestly" conscientious 
Christian would allow you or a Mormon elder to 
preach your " notions" to his wife and children? 
But to prevent you or the elder, it is not necessary 
to kill you. One could call a policeman to abate 
the nuisance. 

Ingersoll. — The law gives a man the right to kill 
one who is about to do great bodily harm to his son. 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 65 

Lambert. — I am not aware that even civil law 
gives such a right, and I know that the divine law 
does not."* Christianity teaches no such doctrine. 

Ingersoll. — Now if the father has the right to 
take the life of a man simply because he is attack- 
ing the body of his son — 

Lambert. — But he has not the right. 

Ingersoll. — How much more would he have the 
right to take the life of one who is about to assas- 
sinate the soul of his son. 

Lambert. — This conclusion is based on a false 
hypothesis, on false premises, and is therefore 
worthless. It is, however, a very good specimen 
of Ingersollian logic. 



*A writer in the Freethinker's Magazt?ie who, the 
editor tells us, is "a leading lawyer of Chicago," after quot- 
ing my words in the text, comments as follows : — 

"If you are not aware that the civil law gives such a 
right, Colonel Ingersoll will gladly lend you his text-book 
and you can find it out for yourself. You will find it stated 
there so plainly that it will be impossible for you to misun- 
derstand it or deny it." 

On reading this I consulted several lawyers — among 
them a district attorney and a justice of the supreme court 
of New York. The lawyers, without a dissenting voice, said 
that the proposition, as stated by Ingersoll, is not the law. 
The district attorney said: " Ingersoll's proposition is too 
broad. It is not the law. As a general proposition with 
no conditions stated, it would be more nearly accurate to 
say : * A father has not the right to kill a man who is about 
to do serious bodily harm to his son.' " The supreme judge 
said : " A man mav use just so much force in defending him- 
I.S.C— 5 



66 INGERSOLL' S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

Ingersoll. — Christians reason in this way. 

Lambert. — No, they don't. They repudiate any 
such argument for the reason that it is neither 
true nor logical. In Christian ethics a man can 
and should defend his child from harm, and if in 
this defense his own life is in such peril that he or 
the unjust aggressor must die, he can kill him, not 
otherwise. But even if your hypothesis were true, 
your conclusions would not follow, because it in- 
troduces a term that is not in the premises. There 
is no analogy between killing the body and killing 
the soul in the same sense. No man can hie et 
nunc kill the soul. He may place a cause, say false 
teaching or bad example, which may ultimately 
lead to the damnation of the soul, but he cannot 
place a cause that leads directly and necessarily to 

self or another as is necessary, or justly seems to him nec- 
essary, to prevent the threatened injury and no more." 

While these lawyers agreed that Ingersoll was wrong, 
they were so far influenced by what Bacon calls the " idol 
of the tribe "as to say they believed that Ingersoll meant all 
right but failed to state what he meant fully enough. 

A distinguished lawyer of the Colorado bar said : — 

" i. The law is that a father may slay one who attempts 
the life of his son, if the criminal assault is made in such a 
way as to create a just apprehension of imminent danger of 
death, or great bodily harm to the child. 

"2. Past threats or conduct of the person killed, however 
violent, will not excuse homicide; no contingent necessity 
will avail the slayer. There must be overt acts indicative 
of immediate danger at the time of killing the assailant. 

" 3. Argument that the aggressor was attacking the son 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 67 

that end. But he can place a cause that leads nec- 
essarily and directly to the death of the body, say, 
cutting off the head or plunging a dagger through 
the heart. In this case the account must be settled 
then and there. But you cannot kill a man to-day 
to avoid a death he may inflict on you forty years 
hence. To conclude, first, your premises are false ; 
second, your conclusion does not follow from your 
premises, even if they were granted. 

Ingersoll. — In addition they felt that God would 
hold them responsible if the community allowed 
the blasphemer to attack the true religion. 

Lambert. — However they may have felt, they 
did right to legislate against blashemy and jail the 
foul-mouthed blasphemer till he learned decency 
and better manners. If he attacks the fixed max- 



must show, in addition, clearly the immediate danger, then 
and there, at once, of death or great bodily harm which 
could only be warded off by killing the assailant. 

"4. If a father, in the necessary defense of his child as 
stated, is himself in immediate danger of death at the hands 
of the aggressor, or of great bodily harm, he certainly may 
slay such aggressor. 

"5. ' These are the doctrines of Universal Justice as well 
as of the Municipal Law,' said Lord Blackstone. 4th Bk., 
Com. 185. 

"From the established principles here laid down, it is 
evident that Ingersoll has not, in the words quoted from him, 
correctly stated the law." 

These views correspond perfectly with the principles of 
theology, the dictates of reason and the natural moral law. 

In other words, Colonel Ingersoll failed to state the law. 



68 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

ims and prevailing belief of a people he must not 
plead the "baby act" after having aroused them 
to rid themselves of what they consider a public 
nuisance. 

Ingersoll. — And therefore they killed the free- 
thinker, or rather, the free talker, in self-defense. 

Lambert. — As we have seen that your premises 
are false, the conclusion is false. Hence, if they 
killed the freethinkers, it was not. therefore, but for 
something else. It appears that it was not the free- 
thinker who was killed for his "think," but the 
free talker for his talk. Many men have been killed 
for their talk, and many will be as long as man has 
passions. When free talk causes disturbance and 
disorder and threatens the peace and prosperity of 
society or the security of the state, men — in all 
times and of all religions — have been in the habit of 
silencing the disturber in one way or another, and 
they will continue to do so, and call it prosecution 
— not persecution. 

Ingersoll. — If the founder of Christianity had 

said — 

Is he as untrustworthy in his own chosen profession as in 
his comments on Moses? He seems to have an innate 
obliqueness of mental vision that makes it almost impossible 
for him to present a fact or a law or a truth correctly. It 
has been the general impression that Chicago had some able 
lawyers. If George Norton Benedict is a leading one among 
them, he has a strange way of showing it. 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 69 

Lambert. — We will speak of that in our next con- 
versation. This vast audience, procured to us by 
the love of fair play and enterprise of the Telegram, 
have had enough for the present. They have been 
severely tried of late. 



CHAPTER II. 

Ingersoll .— If the founder of Christianity had said : 
"It is not necessary to believe in order to be saved," 
. there would probably have been but little 
persecution. 

Lambert. — What an improvement there would 
have been if you had been there to make sugges- 
tions. But it would have been still better if you 
had been a little earlier, that you could have given 
the Creater the benefit of your "idea." That Au- 
gust Being, the perfect wisdom and perfect man- 
hood, before whom the greatest minds of the world 
have bowed in adoration, would have had some 
suggestions to make to you. He could be severe 
when the occasion required it. Though His eyes 
were dim with sorrow, His rebuking glance would 
have shrivelled the irreverent jest in your throat. 
He Who had words of compassion for the Magdalen 
and the thief, lashed with the whip of scorn the 



yo INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

Pharisee and the hypocrite. On the whole, per- 
haps it is better you were not there. Perhaps it 
never occurred to your mind that the reason He did 
not say what you think He ought to have said was 
that it is not true. 

Ingersoll. — If He had added: "You must not 
persecute in My name. My religion is the religion 
of Love — not the religion of Force and Hatred. 
You must not imprison your fellowmen. You 
must not stretch them on racks or crush their 
bones in iron boots. You must not flay them 
alive. You must not cut off their eyelids nor pour 
melted lead into their ears," etc. . . . His 
followers would not have murdered their fellows 
in His name. 

Lambert. — Your catalogue of new command- 
ments is very incomplete. There are many ways 
of giving pain left out. Did your imagination lag 
or your pen tire? Why not have gone on? 4t You 
must not bore a hole in his tongue or in any mem- 
ber of his body or in muscle or sinew, etc. (for 
which see works on physiology). You must not 
burn holes in same or punch them. You must not 
cut same in same. You must not stick pins made 
of iron, steel or brass or aluminum into him. You 
must not stick needles into him, or into his feet or 
hands or fingers or toes. You must not put his 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 71 

head under a pump and pump on him. You must 
not exchange him for a mule, as a certain Southern 
general proposed to do with a certain Northern col- 
onel." Thus you see you failed to get in all the 
agonies. You ought to give some suggestions to 
the author of the book on ' 'Dont's. ' ' The founder of 
Christianity did not legislate in this retail way. 
He laid down a general principle which covers the 
whole ground. He said: "Do unto others as you 
would that others should do unto you," and " Love 
thy neighbor as thyself" How does this compare 
with your picayune formula? If men forget this 
sublime command, they are not followers of Christ. 

Ingersoll. — If Christ was in fact God, He knew 
the persecutions that would be carried on in His 
name. He knew of the millions that would suffer 
death through torture. Yet He died without saying 
one word to prevent what He must have known, if 
He were God, would happen. 

Lambert. — The statement italicized by me raises 
a question of fact. When you made it you were 
either ignorant of the teachings of Christ, or you 
made it with intent to deceive. There is no mid- 
dle ground. You can choose either horn of the 
dilemma, but from one or the other you cannot 
escape. We will now see if Christ died without 
saying one word to prevent the death of millions : 



7 2 



INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 



5 5 5 



"And Jesus said: 4 Thou shalt do no murder 
(Math, xix., 18.) Is not this enough to convict 
you of misrepresentation, wilful or otherwise? It 
is remarkable that Christ in this same verse, adds : 
"Thou shalt not bear false witness." Again, he 
continues in the next verse : "Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself." And in Luke vi., 31 : "As 
you would that men should do unto you, do ye also 
to them likewise." Again: "Judge not and ye 
shall not be judged ; condemn not and ye shall not 
be condemned; forgive and ye shall be forgiven." 
"If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly 
Father will also forgive you ; but if ye forgive not 
men their trespasses, neither will your Father for- 
give you your trespasses." (Math, vi., 14, 15.) I 
might quote other texts to the same effect, but 
enough has been given to prove that you are guilty 
of a historical untruth — you, who talk of candor 
and honor bright ! It is certain that whatever code 
of morals you may follow, it is not the Christian code. 

Ingersoll. — All that Christianity has added to 
morality is worthless and useless. 

Lambert. — Without the truths taught by Chris- 
tianity, there is and can be no morality. Take 
away the origin of moral- obligation, and morality 
is removed with it. Take away the foundation 
and the superstructure falls. Remove the roots 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



73 



and the branches wither, and both blossom and 
fruit fall. Remove the fountain and the brook is 
dry. Hence, morality without God and His re- 
ligion is zero — nothing. In supposing the exis- 
tence of morality without God, you are guilty of 
a pitiful begging of the whole question. Your 
theory of eternal fate leaves man no motive to do 
right but fear of the chain-gang, the jail or the 
gibbet. Talk not, then, to the Christian about 
morality, when your principles make the very idea 
of it impossible. You who teach that man is a 
mere machine, whose thoughts and acts are the 
result of what he eats and digests, and that all he 
is or does is only a link in the endless chain of 
fate, can have no meaning, no thought correspond- 
ing to the word " Morality," and you should re- 
move it from your terminology. There can be no 
moral code for that which acts from absolute and 
fatal necessity. He who would apply the word 
moral or immoral to a locomotive or a type- writing 
machine w^ould be considered an incurable crank. 
The same is to be said of brute animals, who are 
controlled not by free will but by instinct. Moral- 
ity is an attribute of a moral agent, and can have 
no existence where moral free agency is destroyed 
by the doctrine of fatal necessity. But notwith- 
standing this, and while you make man a mere 



74 



INGERSOLIJS CHRISTMAS SERMON 



machine grinding out ideas from whatever may be 
thrown into his hopper, you talk of morality and 
of what Christianity would be without it, and what 
it would be without Christianity, and such like 
meaningless verbiage. 

Ingersoll. — Take Christianity away from moral- 
ity and the useful is left. 

Lambert. — Take away the truths taught by Chris- 
tianity and you have no mortality left, because the 
reason of its being is taken away. 

Ingersoll. — Take morality from Christianity and 
the useless is left. 

Lambert. — When you take the foundation from 
the building it falls a shapeless mass of ruins. 
Christian truth is the foundation of morality. 

Ingersoll. — Now, falling back on the old asser- 
tion: "By its fruits we may know Christianity, M 
then, I think, we are justified in saying that, as 
Christianity consists of a mixture of morality and 
something else, and as morality never has perse- 
secuted a human being, and as Christianity has per- 
secuted millions, the cause of persecution must be 
something else." 

Lambert. — The sophistry of this piece of agnos- 
tic reasoning may be shown in several ways. Let 
us take a parallel illustration and see where it leads. 
It is a fact that thousands of men have been mur- 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 75 

dered in the United States from its beginning down 
to the Latimer, Pa., 4t incident." The question 
now is, who committed all this murder, where shall 
the responsibility be placed? Taking a leaf from 
Ingersollian logic, we proceed in this manner : The 
United States Government is a mixture of Constitu- 
tion, a code of laws and something else. Now, as 
the Constitution and legislation did not murder 
these victims, it must have been something else 
that did it. This something else is the Government. 
Therefore, the Government of the United States 
committed all the murders that have been committed 
since its establishment. Of course, every admirer 
of our Government will be shocked at this agnostic 
conclusion and give the lie. We must agree with 
the indignant patriot and say : Yes, the conclusion 
is false, the argument is Ingersollian. Let us then 
proceed with the analysis till we find the murderers, 
for find them we must, or the Government is in 
for it. As these murders were not committed by 
the Constitution or code of laws or the Govern- 
ment, they were committed by something else. 
This something else can be only men and women. 
We have now got down to the last element of 
the analysis, and must conclude that men and 
women committed the murders. I have left babies 
and sucklings out of the calculation, through respect 



76 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

for Mr. Ingersoll's nerves. Let us now go back to 
the question under consideration and see how this 
analysis works. As Christianity did not persecute 
(notwithstanding Mr. Ingersoll's assertion to the 
contrary), it must have been done by something 
else, and as there is no other imaginable agent in 
the bloody business, we must saddle it on men and 
women, babies excepted for the reason stated. 
And as men and women generally do evil things 
through evil motives and passions, we conclude that 
they persecuted their fellowmen and women to 
realize their evil motives and gratify their evil pas- 
sions ; and in doing so, to shield themselves, stole 
the livery of heaven to serve the devil in. Since 
the earth first drank human blood, spilled by Cain, 
it has thirsted for it, and men's passions slake the 
thirst, despite the voice that thundered from Sinai, 
and was repeated by the Son of Man : " Thou shalt 
do no murder." Christianity re-echoes this divine 
command through the ages, and still the incarna- 
dined Niagara flows on. 

Surely there must be a cause for all this desola- 
tion and mourning. Some awful crime must have 
been committed somewhere — some time. In this 
Rama of lamentation stands the Christian Church, 
a weeping Rachel, pointing, with shuddering hand, 
to Eden and the Man. 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



11 



Ingersoll. — Human nature has been derided, 
has been held up to contempt and scorn, all our 
desires and passions denounced as wicked and 
filthy. 

Lambert. — i. Human nature has been derided. 
Yes, a late school of philosophy tells us we are 
all monkeys of a higher development, and talks of 
a lost caudal extremity, and how the habit of sit- 
ting around stunted the vertebral process. This 
is rather derisive, it must be confessed, but it is 
agnostic derision. You make man a machine. 
2. Hold up to contempt and scorn all our desires. 
No; only evil, impure and filthy desires. 3. And 
passions. No ; Christianity teaches that all our 
passions are good in themselves, because God-given. 
It is the abuse of them, or the improper control of 
them, that is condemned. They are to reason 
what a good horse is to the driver, or what steam 
is to the engineer. When trained and controlled 
good work can be got out of them, but when left 
to their own wild and vagrant impulses, they are 
apt to smash the vehicle or burst the boiler. Chris- 
tianity exhorts us to govern the passions with a 
tight rein and a firm hand, and not let them get 
the bit in their teeth. So here, again, you run off 
with only a piece of an idea, thinking you had the 
whole of it. 



78 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

Now, Mr. Ingersoll, as you have said so much 
about moral codes plus something else, and Chris- 
tianity taken away from morality, etc., will you 
be good enough to give your idea of morality, or 
the standard of morals by which we may know 
whether an act is good or bad ? 

Ingersoll. — A man is a machine into which we 
put what we call food and produce what we call 
thought. Think of that wonderful chemistry, by 
which bread was changed into the divine tragedy 
of Hamlet. ("The Gods," page 47.) 

Lambert. — In compliance with your suggestion, 
I have thought a good deal about it and have 
come to some interesting results, although you 
omitted to tell us what kind of food we should 
take in order to get the machine to think on the 
particular subject you suggest, or what you eat 
that made you suggest it. I must have struck the 
right diet, however, for I thought on what you 
suggested without the least difficulty, and it has 
thrown considerable light on my mind. Your idea 
is like the headlight of a locomotive to me. It 
bores a hole of light into dense darkness and re- 
veals things before unseen. You make thought 
the chemical result of digested food. Then the 
nature and quality of thought depends on the na- 
ture and quality of food plus something else, viz.. 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 79 

the condition and action of the stomach, kidneys, 
liver, bile duct, pylorus, duodenum, plus the per- 
istaltic action, etc. Bread, it appears, comes out 
of this human alembic in the form of divine trag- 
edy. It was just at this point the light struck me 
and I exclaimed, with the old Greek philosopher : 
44 Eureka " — I have found it. Now, thought I, if 
I could only know Mr. Ingersoll's diet I would find 
the key' to his whole system of philosophy. Not 
having his regular bill of fare at hand, I set to 
work to think out about what kind of victuals 
would produce certain well-known results, and Mr. 
Ingersoll may correct me if I am wrong. Thus, 
to think : For the "Mistakes of Moses," he loaded 
his hopper with desert quail of Arabia, Egyptian 
leeks and sacrificial mutton — to the dulcet strains 
of the Jews' harp. For "The Gods," he partook 
of a Barmecide feast, with honey of Hymettus and 
wine of Olymphus or Mytilene, served by Hebe 
or Ganymede. For the " Ghosts," welsh rarebit, 
mince pie, shrapnel, and other indigestible junk. 
For the "Christmas Sermon," the Christmas din- 
ner, which must have been assimilated very quickly. 
If he replies to me, I ask it as a favor that he 
abstain for a time from mustard, pepper sauce and 
chicken, as I am not partial to hot shot or foul, 
play. 



80 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

Hereafter, when the Napoleon of Infidelity gets 
up a new lecture, his previous bill of fare will be a 
matter of public interest, and when he steps smil- 
ingly on the stage, his portly figure will suggest the 
question : Wonder what he's been eating this time? 
It is not surprising that he and I should differ so 
widely in philosophy, since he lives on the fat of 
the land and I on the lean — and fish. But why 
lose his time reasoning with human alembics? 
Why not make out a good, healthy bill of fare that 
would eliminate Christianity from the blood and 
bloom out into agnostic daisies, lilies and daffa- 
downdillies of thought? If the alembic theory is 
correct, this would be the best method of getting 
rid of Christianity. But the Colonel's strong 
points are eloquence and inconsistency. Why ap- 
peal to the head of an alembic, when you can get 
the best results by regulating the hopper? Now, 
Colonel, give us another taste of your philosophy. 

Ingersoll. — In the phenomena of mind, we find 
the same endless chain of efficient causes. The 
same mechanical necessity. Every thought must 
have had an efficient cause. Every motive, every 
desire, every fear, hope and dream must have been 
necessarily produced. The facts and forces gov- 
erning thought are as absolute as those governing 
the motions of the planets. A poem is produced 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 8 1 

by the forces of nature and is as necessarily and 
naturally produced as mountains and sea. Every 
mental operation is the necessary result of certain 
facts and conditions. ("The Gods," page 55.) 

Lambert.— I made this long quotation to enable 
the reader to see clearly what is your idea of free 
thought. How can a man holding such a doctrine 
call himself a freethinker or talk of liberty? Here- 
after when you speak of free thought and liberty, 
your hearers will understand that you speak in a 
Pickwickian sense, or that you do not mean what 
you say. Having thus made free thought an im- 
possibility, you have the brass to complain that 
Christianity "has not been the advocate of free 
thought!" Persecution is one of your unvarying 
refrains. Now I ask, with what consistency you 
complain of persecutions, since, according to your 
doctrine, the persecutors were as much victims of 
this unavoidable law as were the victims who died 
at their hands ? What protest can you consistently 
make against the Inquisition, the thumb screws, 
the racks and iron boots which you so graphically 
and minutely describe, since all these are the 
unavoidable results of a law over which man has 
no control. Is it not time that you had a sympa- 
thetic word for the poor persecutors, those unfor- 
tunate victims of your law? Why confine your 
I.C.S.— 6 



82 INGERSOLIJS CHRISTMAS SERMON 

sympathies to only one class of the victims of Fate ? 
Is it not time that you repudiate your doctrine or 
stop talking about persecutions? I agree with you 
that there is no such thing as free thought, but not 
for the reason given by you. 

Ingersoll. — It (Christianity) certainly has not 
been the advocate of free thought, and what is free 
thought, and what is freedom worth if the mind be 
enslaved ? 

Lambert. — Christianity does not advocate free 
thought for the reason that there is no such thing 
in existence. The term is a misnomer, though it 
is the "harp of a thousand strings" to the bum- 
mers of philosophy and gong-men of science. To 
such gentry the high-sounding phrase, " free-thaw- 
et," is irresistible, though the tyro in psychology 
knows that it is absurd. As the hierophant of 
agnoticism, you should use your influence to have 
the word removed from the agnostic vocabulary. 
The psychologist knows that the intellect, or think 
machine, is not free ; that it is chained to the data 
given it ; that it must necessarily, if it act at all, 
draw conclusions from the data as they are, or as 
it believes them to be. It may have an incorrect 
apprehension of the data, and then its conclusions 
will not accord with the facts, but they will and 
must accord with the intellect's apprehension of 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



83 



the facts — if the intellect be normal. It cannot 
say that a part is greater than the whole. If A 
equals B, and B equals C, it is not free in drawing 
the conclusion, for it must say that C equals A. 
If all men are mortal, and John is a man, it must 
say : John is mortal. The conclusion here is nec- 
essary, not voluntary. The intellect's inability to 
say otherwise is precisely that which constitutes 
its value as an authority in the search after truth. 
The value, then, of the intellect consists in its 
utter lack of freedom. If the intellect could at will 
draw a false conclusion, is it not evident that it 
would lose its rational nature? The highest value 
of the intellect is found in its irredeemable slavery 
to data. Now, thought is an act of the intellect, 
and as the intellect is not free its act or thought is 
not free, for the act of an agent that acts from nec- 
essity is not a free act. Therefore thought is not 
free, and there is no such thing as free thought or 
freethinker. What you wanted to say was : Chris- 
tianity has not been the advocate of liberty or free- 
dom, and then I would have promptly contradicted 
you. 

But if the intellect is not free, what becomes 
of liberty and human freedom? I answer that it 
is safe enough. No philosopher, except perhaps 
some noisy agnostics who destroy liberty, ever 



84 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

dreamed of making the intellect the seat or source 
of liberty. Philosophers of all ages, Christian and 
pagan, who admit the existence of liberty, unite 
in lodging it in the will. They make liberty con- 
sist in the capacity of the soul to will or not to 
will, or to will the contrary, just as it wills. Polit- 
ical liberty is the right of every one to follow the 
bent of his will as long as it does not infringe on 
the rights of others. Your theory of fate destroys 
all liberty when it destroys its seat and source, 
free will. Christianity teaches the freedom of the 
will, your philosophy denies it. Which is the advo- 
cate of liberty ? 

Ingersoll. — Millions have been sacrificed for ex- 
ercising their freedom as against the Church. 

Lambert. — Here again you forget your own doc- 
trines. How could these millions exercise their 
freedom as against the Church or anything else if, 
as you have told us, every motive, every desire, 
every fear and hope must have been necessarily 
produced, and that all man's thoughts and acts are 
the result of mechanical necessity? 

Ingersoll. — Can we prove that the Church estab- 
lished 4t human brotherhood " by banishing the 
Jews from Spain? by driving out the Moors? by 
the Inquisition ? by butchering the Covenanters in 
Scotland? etc. 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 85 

Lambert. — No, that is not the way the Christian 
would prove it. He would prove it by quoting 
the doctrines of Christ as inculcated by the Church 
and by historical facts, and not by the fictions you 
have given above. The Jews and Moors were 
foreigners and invaders in Spain, as the forces of 
Maximillian were in Mexico. The Mexicans drove 
the latter out and executed the Austrian Pretender. 
We think they did right, and if the Jews and 
Moors were objectionable to the Spanish people, 
we see no reason why they should not expel them. 
The doctrine of Christianity does not imply that 
we should turn imbeciles and permit a foreign 
enemy to overrun our country. In any case it was 
an affair of the Spanish nation and not of Chris- 
tianity. I notice that when Christians do any- 
thing of which you disapprove you attribute it to 
Christianity, and when Christianity does something 
you must approve you invariably attribute it to 
individuals who did it in spite of Christianity. 
You are sworn to convict Christianity in any case. 
It is a sad thing when a man permits one idea to 
take possession of his mind and grow and swell till 
it drives out all other ideas, or crowds and pushes 
them out of their normal relations. Such a one 
is said to have a fixed idea, or to be a man of one 
idea. You seem to suffer from a chronic night- 



86 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

mare and call it Christianity. Lawrence Sterne, 
in his "Tristram Shandy," describes this one-idea 
man under the name ' ' hypothesis. " "It is " says he, 
" the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has 
conceived it, that it assimilates everything to itself 
as proper nourishment, and from the first moment 
of his begetting it, it generally grows the stronger 
by everything he sees, hears, reads, or understands." 
Here Sterne takes you off with the faithfulness of 
a kodak. I have already spoken of the Inquisi- 
tion in our last conversation. As to the butcher- 
ing of the Covenanters, English history tells us 
that the Scotch people cut each other's throats 
to a considerable extent and that Oliver Crom- 
well assisted them with his ability and experi- 
ence ; but how you can charge it to Christianity 
is what I cannot understand, unless on Sterne's 
"hypothesis" theory. True, they warred about 
Christian doctrine, as people war about almost 
anything. 

Ingersoll. — Neither do I believe it true that " we 
are indebted to Christianity for the advancement of 
science, art, philosophy, letters and learning." 

Lambert. — The fact itself is of more importance 
than your belief concerning it. Christianity, it is 
true, did not create science or philosophy, as it did 
not create the human mind, but it gave the human 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 87 

mind the environments and conditions and supplied 
it with those principles which made progress in 
science, philosophy and art possible. Agnostics 
try to show that Christianity is antagonistic and 
detrimental to science, art, etc., but in doing so 
they simply destroy the bridge over which they 
have passed the stream, or the ladder by which men 
reached the present elevation on which they stand. 
Science, in the present sense of the term, never was, 
and is not now, known in any country outside 
Christian influence. Christianity did not propose 
to itself the solution or even the statement of scien- 
tific problems, but its doctrines of God's creation, 
the unity and uniformity of the universe, supply the 
foundation of all the arts. "In this way," says 
Professor Lindsay, who suggests this line of thought, 
"the thought of God, as the Creator and preserver 
of all things, gives a complete unity to the universe, 
which pagan thought never reached, and gave the 
basis for the uniformity of nature which science 
demands. It was long ere Christianity could force 
this thought (of unity and uniformity of nature) 
on the human intelligence, but until it had perme- 
ated the whole round of man's intellectual work, it 
was vain to look for advances in science. It was 
the task of scholastic theology and philosophy to 
knead into human thought Christian ideas, and 



88 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

among the rest this idea of the unity and uniform- 
ity of nature. When scholasticism had accom- 
plished this task, modern science sprang into being, 
dependent for its very foundation on that Chris- 
tianity to which it is supposed to be so bitterly 
hostile." 

It is in this way that science, art, philosophy, 
letters and learning are indebted to Christianity, 
plus the encouragement which Christianity has al- 
ways given. 

Ingersoll. — I cheerfully admit that we are in- 
debted to Christianity for some learning. 

Lambert. — There is a suspicious cheerfulness 
about this admission that warns us to keep what 
the quaint Artemus Ward called a " peeled optic " 
on what is to follow. 

Ingersoll. — And that the human mind has been 
developed by the discussion of the absurdities and 
superstitions. 

Lambert. — Christianity must decline to accept 
this crumb of praise, inasmuch as it does not de- 
serve it, not having discussed the subjects you speak 
of. It left that to scientists, philosophers and 
theologians, and if there is any credit due at all it 
is due to them. You are as indiscriminate in your 
praise as in your blame. 

Ingersoll. — Certainly millions and millions — 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 89 

Lambert. — I have been told you are a very liberal 
man. 

Ingersoll. — Millions and millions have had what 
might be called mental exercise — 

Lambert. — But was it mental exercise? If so, 
why haggle; if not, why admit? 

Ingersoll. — And their minds may have been some- 
what broadened by the examination. 

Lambert. — But were they broadened? If so, 
why make the concession limp so? One would im- 
agine you were extracting one of your eye-teeth. 

Ingersoll. — By the examination even of these ab- 
surdities, contradictions and impossibilities — 

Lambert. — What absurdities, contradictions and 
impossibilities! It is evident you never studied 
scholastic philosophy, but have found these catch- 
words in some shallow hand-book of modern philos- 
ophy. They smell of index learning. The great 
French historian, M. Guizot, does not make con- 
cessions so gingerly as you do. He says: "Had 
not the Christian Church existed, the whole world 
would have been swayed by physical force. She 
alone exercised moral power. It was the Church 
which powerfully assisted in forming the character 
and furthering the development of modern civiliza- 
tion," whose monasteries were, even in the most 
gloomy period, the schools of Christian philosophy, 



9° 



INGERSOLVS CHRISTMAS SERMON 



whose clergy ' ' were active and potent at once in 
the domain of intellect and in that of reality," and 
that " the human mind, beaten down by storm, took 
refuge in the asylum of churches and monasteries." 
Maitland, speaking of these Christian institutions 
of learning, says they were "the repositories of 
learning which then was, and the well springs of 
the learning which was to be, as nurseries of art 
and science, giving the stimulus, the means and 
the reward to invention, and aggregating around 
them every head that could devise and every hand 
that could execute." 



CHAPTER III. 

Ingersoll. — That we are indebted to Christianity 
for the advance of science seems absurd. What 
science ? 

Lambert. — And yet it is a fact. Christianity 
supplied the foundation of all true science, art and 
philosophy when it taught man the existence of a 
Supreme Being, the origin of thought and of 
things ; that this Being designed the universe and 
willed it to be, and to continue in its acts to con- 
form to that will of His which we call the natural 
law and Divine Providence. This doctrine of Chris- 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 91 

tianity supplies the human mind with the idea of 
design, with the fact of the unity and unifor?7iity 
of the universe, and with the idea of law and order 
as distinguished from fate and caprice. Now, these 
ideas of design, unity, uniformity, law and order 
are at the bottom of all the sciences, arts and phi- 
losophies, and no science, art or true philosophy 
can be constructed or worked out without them as 
a starting-point. I do not say that Christianity 
originated these ideas, for they exist in a manner 
more or less obscure in the minds of all men ; but 
it sanctioned with divine authority, illuminated, 
illustrated and inculcated them until the intellectual 
activity of the Christian world grew accustomed to 
them as the data of reasoning, whether in the phys- 
ical, moral, ethical or intellectual world. I call 
your attention to the fact that, for a thousand years, 
no progress has been made on the face of the earth 
in science, art, or philosophy, except where Chris- 
tian thought prevails. 

Reflect on this fact and see if you can discover 
any cause for it other than the inspirations of Chris- 
tianity, which has spurred the human mind to an 
activity in all directions unknown to the world out- 
side the circle of its influence. 

The Christian Church did not confine herself to 
this. When she rose to influence in the Roman 



9 2 



INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 



Empire, she began to send out missionaries to all the 
peoples to what is now known as Europe, to the 
northern barbaric pagan tribes, to Spain, France, 
Germany, England and Ireland, and wherever 
they went cathedrals, schools and religious houses 
arose and communities formed about them. These 
became the centres of peaceful employment, educa- 
tion and civilization. They were the asylums of 
learning at times when all Europe was a battlefield, 
when, owing to the dissolution of the Roman Em- 
pire, nation contended with nation, and the North- 
ern invaders swarmed down over Central and 
Southern Europe at different times under Alaric, 
Genseric, and Attila, and threatened to sweep away 
what then existed of civilization. It is to these 
times that M. Guizot alluded when he wrote : 4 ' Had 
not the Christian Church existed, the whole world 
would have been swayed by physical force." The 
Church converted and civilized those barbaric con- 
querors. In these schools, established all over 
Europe by the missionaries, was preserved the lit- 
erature of the past. The members of the religious 
orders spent their lives in translating into the newly 
forming languages the Scriptures, the classics, the 
histories and scientific works of Greece and Rome. 
Were it not for their labors, all these would be as 
unknown to us as the literature of the Pelasgic 



REVIEWED BT L. A.LAMBERT. 93 

Greeks and of Egypt prior to the Shepherd Kings. 

To these Christian teachers Ave owe the works of 
Homer, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Euclid, in fact all the 
Greek and Latin authors extant, for had they not 
devoted their lives to the preservation of them, the 
revolutions and invasions that swept, wave aftei 
wave, over Europe would have left no vestige of 
them. In this great work these men were inspired 
by the genius of Christianity. The unbiased his- 
torian of learning and civilization in Europe will 
recognize what learning in all its branches owes 
to Christianity. In these cathedrals and monastic 
schools were collected and preserved all the great 
libraries which had been copied and recopied by 
tireless pens — for the art of printing and multiply- 
ing books had not yet been discovered. From these 
schools sprang the great universities. 

The genius of Christianity encourages labor in 
all the sciences. 

Ingersoll. — What sciences? Christianity was 
certainly the enemy of astronomy. 

Lambert. — All of them. But as you mention as- 
tronomy, let us take that science as an illustration 
and sketch its steps from the Middle Ages up to 
the present. In the fifth century the Ptolemaic 
system of astronomy had taken possession of the 
European mind. All reasoning on the subject was 



94 



INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 



based on that system. And, strange to say, it ex- 
plained all the phenomena observed up to the time 
of Nicolaus Copernicus. 

Running our finger down the almanac of time, 
we strike a name in the seventh century — the ven- 
erable Bede, the father of English history, a monk 
and a saint. A man whom the great English states- 
man, Edmund Burke, from the loftiness of his gen- 
ius, styled "The father of English literature," and 
of whom Mr. Turner observes: 4t He collected 
and taught more natural truths than any Roman 
writer had yet accomplished, and his works display 
an advance, not a retrogression, in science." This 
man taught that the true shape of the earth was 
globular, and attributed to this fact the irregularity 
of our days and nights. He explained the ebb and 
flow of the tides by the attractive power of the 
moon, and pointed out the error of supposing that 
all the waters of the ocean rise at the same moment. 
He showed that the sun is eclipsed by the interven- 
tion of the moon, and the moon by that of the 
earth. He condemned judicial astrology as false 
and pernicious. 

It seems to me, Colonel, that this old monk's 
head was somewhat level. Is it not strange that he 
was not drawn and quartered, or that Christianity 
did not pour hot lead into his ears, or cut off his eye- 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



95 






lids, or fit him with a neat pair of iron boots. He 
died a beautiful death, which I will speak of, if you 
remind me, when we come to talk of Voltaire's 
death, about which you have made some agnostic 
blunders. Cuthbert, one of Bede's disciples, says 
of him : " I can declare with truth, that never saw I 
with my eyes, or heard I with my ears, of any man 
so indefatigable in giving thanks to God. After 
study he always applied himself to prayer." I am 
somewhat puzzled here to tell whether his case was 
one of science plus holiness or holiness plus science. 
As you are strong in minus and plus precision, you 
might help me out. 

Run your finger a little further down the line of 
time and we hit on another monk, an Irishman by 
the name of Feargil, or O'Farrell, which in Latin, 
you know, is Virgilius, and in English, Virgil. 
Wonder if the Mantuan bard had not a drop of 
Milesian blood in him? But that, by the way. 
This Irish monk taught the existence of the antip- 
odes. He got into trouble about it, of course. 
The Church hauled him up, as usual, and made an 
example of him, it, not having hot lead or iron 
boots handy, made him Bishop of Salzburg. 

A little further down the line we come across 
Alcuin, another churchman. He taught in Paris in 
the latter half of the eighth century in the time of 



9 6 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

Charlemagne, who used to consult him on astro- 
nomical questions. In the year 798 the king and his 
academicians felt great anxiety in consequence of 
the erratic movements of the planet Mars, whose 
disappearance for a whole year puzzled them very 
much. They asked an explanation of Alcuin. In 
his reply he said: "What has now happened to 
Mars is frequently observed of all the other planets, 
viz., that they remain longer under the horizon 
than is stated in the books of the ancients. The 
rising and the setting of the stars vary from the 
observations of those who live in the southern and 
eastern parts of the world, where the masters 
chiefly flourished who have set forth the laws of the 
universe." It is evident from these words that 
Alcuin was acquainted with the globular form of 
the earth and the phenomena depending upon 
it. He was a scientist in all its branches, a man 
of rare genius and great piety. Was not that 
strange ? 

This man whose eagle eye could take in the uni- 
verse did not lose his head in the physical sciences 
or in the classic literature of Rome and Greece, of 
which he was a master. Nor was he puffed up with 
pride like a frog with chronic dyspepsia — as are so 
many of our modern scientists and their agnostic 
gong-men. He could give good advice. He once 



REVIEWED Bl' L. A. LAMBERT. 



97 



wrote to a young nobleman in this style : ' ' Seek 
to adorn your noble rank with noble deeds. Let 
humanity be in your heart, and truth on your lips, 
and let your life be a pattern of integrity, so that 
God may be pleased to prosper your days." There 
is more wisdom in these few lines, Colonel, than 
in all the philosophy, so called, that you ever uttered. 
It would improve you and your flatulent followers 
greatly if you followed his advice. I cannot resist 
the temptation to quote some more from this man's 
writings. There is a healthy, vigorous atmosphere 
about them that one needs after rising from a pe- 
rusal of your wisdom. Of course, being a man 
of genius and a scientist, Alcuin could not escape 
scot free the persecutions of the Christian Church. 
But it being a day off at the Inquisition, and lead 
and iron boots being costly, — owing, perhaps, to 
a high protective McKinley tariff, — the Church 
could not take full revenge on him, so they only 
made him an Abbot — Abbot of St. Martin's in 
France. From this gloomy prison or penitentiary, 
or what you may call it, he wrote a letter to Charle- 
magne, in which he tells how he passed the tedious 
hours of his imprisonment. "I spend my time in 
the halls of St. Martin, teaching the noble youths 
under my care. To some I serve out the honey of 

Holy Scriptures. Others I essay to intoxicate with 
I.C.S.— 7 



98 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

the wine of ancient literature. One class I nourish 
with the apples of grammatical studies, and to the 
eyes of others I display the order of the shining 
orbs that adorn the azure heavens." To some 
students who asked him the end of philosophy and 
how to attain it, he replied: "It will be easy to 
show you the w^ay to wisdom, provided you seek it 
purely for God's sake, to preserve the purity of 
your own soul, and for the love of virtue." " Mas- 
ter," continued they, "raise us up from the earth 
where our ignorance now detains us, and lead us to 
those heights of science where you passed your own 
early years. The poets would seem to tell us that 
the sciences are the true banquets of the gods." 
To which he answered : ' ' We read of Wisdom 
which is spoken of by the mouth of Solomon, that 
she built herself a house and hewed out seven pil- 
lars. Now, although these pillars represent the 
seven gifts of the Holy Ghost and the seven Sacra- 
ments of the Church, we may also discern in them 
the seven liberal arts, grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, 
arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy, which 
are like so many steps on which philosophers ex- 
pend their labors, and have obtained the honors of 
eternal renown." And this in the eighth century, 
mind you ! In the mind of this great man there 
does not appear any antagonism between religion 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 99 

and science. His thoughts are as refreshing as the 
country air laden with the sweet odors of the grass 
and the trees after a gentle shower. 

Ingersoll. — Christianity was certainly an enemy 

of astronomy, and I believe that it was Dr. Draper 

who said that astronomy took her revenge, so that 

'not a star that glitters in all the heavens bears a 

Christian name. 

Lambert. — The remark is a very silly one, who- 
ever made it. The Romans, and through them 
the peoples of Europe, received their astronomical 
knowledge, limited as it was, from the Greeks, 
Pythagoras, Hipparchus and Ptolemy, and with 
it the Greek nomenclature. The Almagest of 
Ptolemy was the text-book for centuries in Chris- 
tian Europe. Christian scholars knew the con- 
fusion that is caused by changing the terminology 
of a science, and therefore retained the Greek 
terms. Had they discarded them, you would have 
complained. They retained them, and you sneer 
that astronomy took her revenge! You are like 
the Frenchman who was to be hanged, neither a 
long nor a short rope would suit him. But let us 
go back to our illustration. We stopped at Alcuin. 
In 314 we find Musva, a Christian physician, teach- 
ing astronomy to Al-Mamun, the son of Harun-al- 
Raschid, King of Babylon. 

LrfC. 



ioo INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

We now come to Gerbert, in the tenth century, 
that mediaeval time when darkness was at its 
highest concentration. The diversified character 
of his acquirements made this man of genius the 
wonder of the world in the eyes of his contempo- 
raries, and the natural sciences were his special at- 
traction. He wrote several treaties on astronomy, 
mathematics, geometry, the formation of the astro- 
labe, the quadrant and the sphere. He made a 
clock for Otho III. which he regulated by the 
polar star, which he observed through a kind of 
tube — evidently a primitive telescope. In teaching 
astronomy he used various instruments, among 
them a globe with its poles oblique to the horizon. 
He introduced the system of decimal notation, the 
miscalled Arabic numerals, to Christian Europe. 
But of that further on. A man of such prodigious 
activity of mind would, as you may naturally sup- 
pose, attract the cold, octopus eye of Christianity. 
He did. He was brought to Rome. He was help- 
less and entirely in their power and they — cut his 
tongue out, poured hot lead into his ears, stretched 
him on a rack and applied the iron boot ? — Oh, no, 
they made him Pope and called him Sylvester the 
Second. 

We come now to Albertus Magnus, who, says 
Humboldt in his " Cosmos," u was equally active 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 101 

and influential in promoting the study of natural 
science and of the Aristotelian philosophy." He 
decided that the Milky Way was a vast assemblage 
of stars, — this before the invention of the telescope, 
— and that the figures on the moon, before his 
time supposed to be reflections of the seas and 
mountains of the earth, were the configurations of 
the moon's own surface. He describes the antip- 
odes and the countries they comprise, and explains 
why they do not fall off, saying, " when we speak 
of the lower hemispheres this must be understood 
merely as relatively to ourselves." M. Meyer, 
speaking of Albertus, says: "All honor to the 
man who made such astonishing progress in the 
science of nature as to find no one, I will not say to 
surpass but even to equal him for the space of three 
centuries." As usual, you maybe sure, the Church 
got hold of him. He was taken to Rome and made 
the Pope's consulting theologian. 

Roger Bacon, a monk, was another scientist of 
the Middle Ages. Of him the astronomer Bouvier 
says : " One of the most extraordinary minds of 
that or any age, made some valuable suggestions on 
the construction of astronomical instruments. He 
also proposed a reformation of the calendar three 
hundred years before any corrections were made in 
it." 



I02 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

In the early part of the fifteenth century we come 
across the name of Nicholas de Cusa. In his work 
entitled " De Docta Ignorantia," we find the follow- 
ing : "It is manifest to us that the earth is truly 
in motion, although it does not appear to us, since 
we do not apprehend motion except by something 
fixed. For if anyone were in a boat, in the middle 
of the river, ignorant that the water was flowing. 
and not seeing the banks, how could he apprehend 
that the boat was moving? And thus since every 
one, whether he be in the earth, or in the sun, or in 
any other star, thinks that he is in an immovable 
centre, and that everything else is moving, he would 
assign different poles for himself, others as being in 
the sun, and others in the moon, and so on for the rest. 
Whence the machine of the world is as if it had its 
centre everywhere and its circumference nowhere." 
Here we have the origin of the phrase "E fui- si 
?ntcove" " and yet it moves," attributed to Galileo. 
The infatuation that makes the shallow gong-men 
of science attribute to Galileo the origin of the doc- 
trine of the earth's movement is unaccountable. 
You will naturally be interested in the fate of poor 
de Cusa. He was lured to Rome and made a Car- 
dinal. 

Then comes Copernicus, who revolutionized as- 
tronomy in 1543, by his celebrated work, 4t De Revo- 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



103 



lutionibus Orbium Coelestium," which, strange to 
say, he dedicated to Pope Paul III. He put his 
work under the protection of the Pope that his 
august character and patronage might shield him 
from the ridicule of contemporary scientists, who, 
he feared, would consider him a crank. In the dedi- 
cation he said : "I must be allowed to believe that 
as soon as what I have written about the motion of 
the earth will be known, cries of indignation will be 
uttered against me. Besides, I am not so much in 
love with my own ideas as not to take into account 
what others will think of them ; " then, though the 
thoughts of a philosopher follow a different direc- 
tion from those of the generality of men, because he 
proposes to himself to search after truth, as far as 
God has allowed it to human reason: "I do not 
think, however, that I ought to regret opinions 
which seem to differ from mine. . . . All these 
motives, as the fear of becoming an object of laugh- 
ter on account of the novelty and the (apparent) 
absurdity of my view, had almost made me give up 
my undertaking. But friends, among whom are 
the Cardinal Schomberg and Tiedman Giese, Bishop 
of Kulm, succeeded in conquering my repugnance. 
The latter particularly insisted most earnestly that 
I should publish this book which I had kept by on 
the stocks, not nine, but nearly thirty-six years." 



104 



INGERSOLUS CHRISTMAS SERMON 



There are three important points to be noticed in 
this letter of Copernicus : — 

i st. — That it was the scientists of his time he 
feared, and not the Church. The scientists would 
be indignant and laugh at him. 

2nd. — His repugnance to publish his great work, 
that was to revolutionize astronomy, was overcome 
by two churchmen — Cardinal Schomberg and the 
Bishop of. Kulm — the latter of whom insisted 
earnestly that it should be published. So both 
the discovery and the promulgation of the modern 
system of astronomy were due to these Christian 
clergymen. There was no agnosticism or infidelity 
about it. 

3rd. — The tone of the whole letter shows the true 
Christian humility of a great scientific genius. 
How different from the loquacious egotism of some 
modern scientific smatterers who, when they think 
they have discovered some new theory, go about 
cutting pigeon wings and cackling like a hen that 
has laid an egg. This sets the chanticleers and 
street-corner-quack-medicine-venders of science ago- 
ing, and the clatter is kept up, till the theory ex- 
plodes on their hands, before they have had time 
to get at Moses about it. Their measure of the 
value of a discovery is how hard they think it will 
hit Moses and revelation. 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



™S 



Following Copernicus comes such Christian names 
as Tycho Brahe, Galileo, Euler, Kepler, Descartes, 
Huygens, Newton, Leibnitz. All these were mas- 
ters and there is not an agnostic among them. Is 
not that strange? 

Now we can, if you wish, take any of the other 
sciences, and we can point out great men in 
the Christian past who worked zealously in the 
cause of science, and talked much less than the 
average agnostic. You will say that their labors 
and discoveries were in spite of Christianity, 
and I will say that you had better go over to 
the Brooklyn Navy Yard and tell the marines 
about it. 

Ingersoll. — Can it be said that the Church has 
been the friend of geology, or of any true philoso- 
phy? Let me show how this is impossible. 

Lambert. — That will be interesting. By all 
means proceed. 

Ingersoll. — The Church accepts the Bible as an 
inspired book. 

Lambert.— That is correct. Now, then. 

Ingersoll. — Then the only object is to find its 
meaning. 

Lambert. — That is certainly the first object, but 
it does not follow that it is the only one. But let 
that pass ; go on. 



106 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

Ingersoll. — And if that meaning is opposed to 
any result that the human mind may have reached, 
the meaning stands and the result reached by the 
mind must be abandoned. 

Lambert. — The Christian believes that the Su- 
preme Being who inspired the Bible is the same 
God who created nature, life and intelligence, and 
that this Primum Philosofhicum and Source of 
existences as well as revelation cannot contradict 
Himself and say one thing in revelation and the 
contrary in nature. This is the basis on which the 
Christian begins his reasoning, and from this he 
concludes that the true meaning of the Bible and 
the true results of science cannot contradict each 
other. To the Christian, then, your hypothesis 
bears on its very face an absurdity. This he sees 
directly by his Christian instinct. Hence, when 
in scientific investigations he comes across results 
or supposed results which are in contradiction to 
what he thinks to be the meaning of the Bible, he 
pauses and reflects, and instead of saying "the 
Bible contradicts science," he says, "either I have 
not understood the Bible rightly or I have not 
understood science correctly ; and before I can 
affirm a contradiction I must readjust and recon- 
sider my data. What I have taken to be the 
meaning of the Bible may not be its meaning, and 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 107 

what I have taken as a result of science may be 
only the result of a miscalculation somewhere ; and 
before I can assert a contradiction between them 
I must know the meaning of the Bible and have 
the last word of science on the subject. I know 
that this universe is but the thought of God pro- 
jected into existence by His creative act, and that 
His word does not contradict His world." 

This is the way in which a philosophic Christian 
mind would proceed, and not agnostic-wise draw 
the sword of FalstafT on men in buckram and ken- 
dal green. I have said the Christian will see the 
absurdity of your hypothesis at a glance, but a care- 
ful analysis of it will make this all the more clear. 
The sophistry of your argument lurks in the indefi- 
nite phrases, "Any result that the human mind 
may have reached " and " the result reached by hu- 
man mind." Now, what do you mean by " results 
reached by the human mind? " Do you mean re- 
sults reached a thousand years ago ? or those up to 
the present moment? or those to be reached one 
hundred or five hundred years hence? The history 
of the race is a history of changes in what you call 
44 results reached by the mind," reached only to be 
changed on more and broader data. The history of 
science is the history of corrections and changes of 
results reached by the human mind. These results, 



108 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

then, to be of value in a comparison, must be ulti- 
mate results, and be known to be such, otherwise 
we cannot know but future experience may afford 
data which will make it necessary for the human 
mind to throw aside present results and adopt new 
ones. 

I speak, of course, of the physical sciences. If 
you say you take present results for a comparison 
with the Bible I will object until you prove that 
the present results are ultimate ; that no possible 
future discoveries can change them ; that they are 
complete and fixed forever and nothing more can 
ever be known — in a word, that science has uttered 
its last word on that subject. Of course, you know 
that this proof is impossible, and yet my objection 
is legitimate and logical. Until you demonstrate 
that present results are ultimate and forever fixed, 
your making them the test of the truth of the Bible 
is absurd. 

To impress on you the importance of that last 
word or scientific ultimate, I will give an illustra- 
tion. Suppose yourself to be retrojected to the 
days of Ptolemy. Your mind would be as full of 
the Ptolemaic system of astronomy as it is now 
of that of Copernicus. You meet a Christian 
from Thebes, say, and you would reason with him 
thus: Your Bible is wrong. Why, sir? Because 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 109 

it is in contradiction with the results reached by 
the human mind. The Christian asks : "Are the 
results the last on the subject?" You would say, 
of course, "They are," just as you say it now. 

Now let us suppose that Christian to be brought 
down to our time. He hears you talk learnedly, 
as it were, on astronomy. " Hello, my astronomical 
friend, are you not the scientist I met on the banks 
of the Nile one thousand eight hundred years ago? 
What are the latest results reached by the human 
mind? Here is my Bible — I did not change it 
to suit your ' results reached by the human mind,' 
and I am glad I did not, for now I would have to 
change it again to suit the new set of i results 
reached by the human mind.' Now, my ancient 
friend, tell me, if I change my Bible to suit the 
new 'results,' will you promise I will not have to 
change it again the next time we meet five hundred 
years hence?" What would you say? 

When you can assure the Christian that your 
"results reached by the human mind" are fixed, 
finished, complete and unalterable, you will be 
ready to use them as a test of the meaning of the 
Bible. But as you cannot give any such assurance, 
you cannot get at his Bible. The obstacle in your 
way is insurmountable, for you must admit that 
science is progressive, and the " results reached by 



no INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

the human mind " must go on a sort of sliding scale 
to keep up with the progress, and this progress 
will continue until the Angel of Eternity calls the 
muster roll of time. Therefore, at no given time 
can you say that any given result is the last word 
of science on the subject. 

But you will ask : Is not the Copernican system 
sufficiently established to test the truth of the Scrip- 
tures by it? I answer no, and for the following 
reasons: Science has not yet passed an ultimate 
judgment on it ! It is true that the system accounts 
for all the astronomical phenomena observed up to 
the present time. But this fact does not demon- 
strate its truth, for the Ptolemaic system accounted 
for all the phenomena to the satisfaction of scien- 
tists up to the time of Copernicus, who excogitated 
what we believe to be a more perfect system, and 
rendered incalculable service to science by enabling 
it to account for all the phenomena observed in the 
new fields opened up by the telescope and other 
more perfect instruments used in astronomy. 

Now as the Ptolemaic scientist would have erred 
in saying that science had said its last word in 
formulating that ancient system, so the scientist of 
to-day risks falling into the same error when he 
asserts that the astronomical science has given its 
ultimate judgment in the Copernican formula. All 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. m 

he is justified in saying is that this formula is the 
latest, but not the last word science may have to 
say. 

But has it not been demonstrated? No, it has 
not ! To demonstrate the truth of the Copernican 
system three things are necessary : First, that it 
account for all phenomena observed up to the pres- 
ent. Second, that it can account for all possible 
phenomena that greater experience, wider obser- 
vation and more perfect instruments may open up 
to human knowledge. No scientist of to-day can 
say that it can do this, for proof of this is, in the 
nature of things, impossible, as a moment's reflec- 
tion will make evident. And, third, that no other 
possible system can account for the phenomena of 
the science, past, present and future. This require- 
ment is equally unprovable. Therefore the truth of 
the Copernican system has not been demonstrated. 

But is it not true? Here I will for just once play 
the agnostic and say I don't know. This is the 
only world I was ever in and I am somewhat pro- 
vincial, at least I think I am, but I also think I 
don't know for certain ; that is to say, I think that 
I think that I think that I t-h-i-n-k — Ah, Colonel, 
quick, your smelling salts — ah — I'm better now — 
but I'll not try to ride an agnostic hobby again, 
it jolts worse than a wild mustang. 



H2 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

Of what value, then, is the system? Will you re- 
ject it in the face of the science and learning of the 
day? No, I look on the system as a miracle of hu- 
man genius, as of immense value to mankind, and 
that the probability of its truth is as a million to 
one, but as long as that one remains the truth of the 
system is not demonstrated. This one possibility 
against it must be eliminated before the system is 
demonstrated. The presence of this one possibility 
against the million probabilities, however, does not 
prevent the system from being useful for all the 
affairs of life in this world. Why then may we 
not compare its results with the Scripture? I will 
tell you. The uttered word of the Supreme Being, 
the Absolute Truth, must be necessarily true, for it 
is a contradiction in terms to say or think that the 
Perfect Being could utter an untruth. Here, then, 
we have a necessary truth, a truth that cannot not- 
be. In the Copernican system we have a most 
-probable truth, a million or ten million to one — 
that fatal one which makes the Copernican probable 
truth one that can not-be. 

This astronomic probable truth is empirical, ex- 
perimental, as all the results or conclusions of the 
physical sciences, from their very nature, must be. 
The difference, then, between these two truths is 
this. The former is a truth that cannot not-be, 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 113 

necessary truth. The latter is a truth that can not- 
be, a contingent truth. It is evident that the former 
is of a higher order than the latter. 

Now, with this explanation we can see how 
absurd it is to make a truth of a lower order the 
measure of a truth of a higher 'order, or to make a 
probable result of science the measure and touch- 
stone of the veracity of the Supreme Being, if these 
two kinds of truth should appear to come in colli- 
sion. I say, should appear to come in collision, for 
a real collision between the true results of science 
and the uttered word of God is impossible, since the 
Supreme Being is the origin and source of both 
kinds of truth — the revealed and natural — both 
kinds of existences, intelligences and matter, and 
He, the Absolute Truth*, cannot contradict Himself. 

The conclusion from all this is that when there 
appears to be contradictions between the inspired 
word of God and the true results of science, we 
must conclude they are only apparent, not real. 
And when a real contradiction exists, science must 
readjust its data. To illustrate this let us sup- 
pose that the Scripture in so many words clearly 
and explicitly condemned the Copernican system 
as erroneous. What then? Why I would imme- 
diately conclude that in the probabilities of ten 

million to one, the one had won, and that science 

I.C.S.— 8 



ii4 



INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 



should direct its energy to working out the true 
system that would account for all phenomena past, 
present and to come. But, as a matter of fact, the 
so-called contradictions harped on by the agnostics 
are only men in buckram and kendal green. 

Now after this long, but necessary digression, let 
us go back to Mr. Ingersoll's argument, which is 
that it is impossible that the Church has been the 
friend of science. 

Ingersoll. — Let me show you how this is impos- 
sible. The Church accepts the Bible as inspired. 

Lambert. — Yes, I admit all that and that if the 
true meaning of the Bible contradicts a "result 
reached by the human mind," that result must be 
abandoned and the human mind must try again, 
for it knows it makes a great many blunders. 

Just here it strikes me that in the long explana- 
tion above I left out one possible meaning which 
you may have attached to the phrase, "results 
reached by the human mind." You may have 
meant what Christian philosophers call the sensus 
communus, or common consent of mankind. If 
you meant this, it is equally useless to you, for the 
common consent of mankind does not affirm the 
Copernican system. On the contrary, the great 
majority of mankind in the past as in the present 
knew nothing whatever about it; "the results 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



"5 



reached by the human mind " tells them nothing 
about it. It is only within the pale and influence 
of Christian civilization that the Copernican sys- 
tem is known and taught. This fact probably 
never occurred to you. But let us return to the 
point from which we have wandered — by the way, 
what a vagrant spirit takes possession of one when 
meditating on agnostic philosophy ! Your point 
was to prove that the Church plus Bible was an 
enemy of the sciences. But as we have been ram- 
bling somewhat, suppose you state it again that we 
may have another look at it. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Ingersoll. — Can it be said that the Church is the 
friend of geology or of any true philosophy? Let 
me show you how this is impossible. The Church 
accepts the Bible as an inspired book. Then the 
only object is to - find its meaning ; and, if that 
meaning is opposed to any result that the human 
mind may have reached, the meaning stands and 
the result reached by the mind must be abandoned. 

Lambert. — The full force of the argument will 
be better seen if we throw the reasoning into the 
form of a syllogism ; it would then stand thus : — 
Whatever causes the "results reached by the 



n6 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

human mind" to be abandoned, is not a friend of 
true philosophy. But the Church plus the Bible 
causes the " results reached by the human mind'''' to 
be abandoned; therefore the Church plus the Bible 
is not a friend of true philosophy. This draws out 
the full force of the argument and presents it in 
logical form. It must be admitted that thus pre- 
sented it looks somewhat formidable. It is an 
agnostic battery loaded to the muzzle. There is 
no way to get around it, so we must attack it in 
front and take it by storm, for taken it must be, 
or we must retire beyond its reach ; in a word, we 
must retreat, but as that cannot be thought of for 
a moment, we must rig up some sort of a syllogistic 
Krupp gun that will blow it into pieces. This gun 
will be in the shape of another syllogism, and 
stands thus : — 

Whatever causes the ' ' results reached by the 
human mind" to be abandoned, is no friend of true 
philosophy. 

But Copernicus caused the 44 results reached by 
the human mind" in astronomy to be abandoned. 
Therefore Copernicus was no friend of astronomy. 

Now, Colonel, are you prepared to accept this 
logical result of your line of argument and lower 
the flag on your battery? No ! Very well, I'll give 
you another shot. 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



ii 7 



Ampere caused the " results reached by the human 
mind" on electricity to be abandoned. Therefore 
Ampere was not a friend of science. 

Do you surrender yet? Not yet? Well, here 
goes again. 

Lavoisier, by exploding the Phlogiston theory of 
chemistry, caused the " results reached by the human 
mind" to be abandoned,. Therefore Lavoisier was 
not a friend of scie?ice. 

You don't lower your flag yet? Well, here goes 
again. 

Champollion caused the "^results reached by the 
human mind" on Egyptology to be abandoned. 
Therefore he was 7tot a friend of science. 

Dr. Young caused the " residts reached by the 
human mi?id" on the theory of light to be abandoned . 
Therefore he was not a friend of science. 

Newton, Franklin, Edison caused the results of 
the hu — Ah, that is right, but you should have 
come down sooner. In fact the great scientists are 
great precisely because they caused the scientific 
results of the human mind to be abandoned and 
new results to be accepted. Now, Colonel, this 
skirmish makes it clear as " a result of the human 
mind " that even if I were to admit that the Church 
plus the Bible caused "the results reached by the 
human mind " to be abandoned, it would not follow 



n8 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

that the Church plus the Bible was not a friend of 
science and true philosophy. That is the way your 
fine-spun sophisms go off in vapor under analysis. 
Yet, strange as it may seem, there are some people 
who think, in the simplicity of their hearts, that 
you are a logician. 

Ingersoll. — For hundreds of years the Bible was 
the standard, and whenever anything was asserted 
in any science contrary to the Bible, the Church im- 
mediately denounced the scientist. 

Lambert. — It is strange how far a mind, once 
thrown from its equilibrium by blind unreasoning 
prejudice can go. There is a likeness between 
love and hatred in this, that when a man permits 
either passion to take full control of him he flings 
calm reason to the winds, gives the rein and bends 
all his energies to the spur, and like one in a mad 
delirium dashes onward, he knows not and cares 
not whither — only that it is onward. Shakes- 
peare with his master hand describes this state of 
mind in the words of baffled Florizel in "Winter's 
Tale:"— 

Florizel: I 

Am heir to my affection. 

Camillo: Be advis'd. 

Florizel: I am ; and by my fancy : if my reason 
Will thereto be obedient, I have reason ; 
If not, my senses, better pleas'd with madness, 
Do bid it welcome. 



REVIEWED BT Z,. A. LAMBERT. no, 

Camillo: This is desperate, sir. 

Florizel: So call it ; but it does fulfill my vow : 
I needs must think it honesty. 

For hundreds of years the Bible was the stand- 
ard. 

No sane man need be told that the Bible was 
never the standard of the physical sciences. It is a 
book that deals with man's spiritual and moral 
nature. It makes no claim to be a treatise on 
science, nor was any such claim ever made for it by 
Jew or Christian. In the first part it treats of the 
origin of things — a field into which the physical 
sciences cannot enter, for these treat of things as 
they find them in existence. Part of it relates to 
Jewish political, civil and domestic life and his- 
tory ; another part treats of the moral law, and still 
another of prophecy, but no part is devoted to the 
physical sciences. It is the same with the Christian 
Church. She does not and never did teach the 
physical sciences, for such is not her mission, 
though she encouraged in her schools the study of 
them. 

And whenever anything was asserted in any 
science contrary to the Bible, the Church imme- 
diately denounced the scientist. 

One who puts himself forward as a teacher and 
reformer and flaunts his crude notions aggressively 



120 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

and offensively in the face of a patient Christian 
people should have at least some show of respect 
for public opinion and historic truth. Did the 
Church denounce Bede, Alcuin, Gerbert, Albertus 
Magnus, Celio Calcagnini, De Cusa, Novara, Da 
Vinci, Torricelli? 

The Church was the friend of all the sciences, 
and of letters and arts as well. I ask, in the words 
of the Archbishop of Malines : Who founded the 
universities of Oxford and Cambridge, in England? 
The Popes. Who founded the universities of 
Paris, Bologna, Ferrara, Salamanca, Coimbra, 
Alcala, Heidelberg, Prague, Cologne, Vienna, 
Louvaine, and Copenhagen? The Popes. Who in- 
stituted the professorships of the Greek, Hebrew, 
Arabic and Chaldaic languages at Paris, Oxford, 
Bologna and Salamanca? Pope Clement the Fifth. 
By whom, during two centuries, were sustained, 
encouraged, recompensed the works of savants 
which finally lead to the knowledge of the system 
of the world? The Popes and Cardinals. 

When was the system of the earth's movement 
adopted and first taught? At Rome in 1425 by 
Nicholas de Cusa, professor in the Roman Uni- 
versity, forty-eight years before the birth of Coper- 
nicus, and one hundred and thirty-nine years be- 
fore Galileo was born. De Cusa at that time 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 12 \ 

defended the system of the earth's movement in a 
work dedicated to Cardinal Julian Cesarini. Pope 
Nicholas V. raised De Cusa to the Cardinalate. 
Again it was at Rome, toward the year 1500, 
that Copernicus explained and defended this sys- 
tem before an audience of two thousand scholars. 
He was made Canon of Koenigsberg. Celio Cal- 
cagnini, who taught the system of De Cusa and 
Copernicus in Italy about 15 18, was appointed 
apostolic prothonotary by Clement VIII., and con- 
firmed in this position of honor by Paul III. It 
was to Paul III. that Copernicus dedicated his 
work " De Revolutionibus Orbium Ccelestium." 
It was a Pope who used his utmost endeavors to 
place Kepler in the University of Bologna. The 
Church never fears the light. She knows and 
teaches that the light of reason and the light of 
faith come from the same source ; that one of these 
truths will never contradict the other, and that 
among the proofs of revelation we must not forget 
its harmony with the sciences. From Clement of 
Alexandria and Origen to Descartes, Leibnitz, Pas- 
cal, Kepler and De Maistre, to say nothing of our 
contemporaries, science and faith have dwelt to- 
gether in the greatest minds of Christendom. This 
list of historical facts is enough to overthrow all 
your glib statements on the subject. 



122 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

But what about Galileo ? 

As a doctrine of the movement of the earth was 
taught before Galileo was born by men who were 
promoted to high positions in the Church, it is 
very natural to suppose that if Galileo got into dif- 
ficulties with the authorities it was not for teaching 
the heliocentric theory of astronomy, but for plus 
something' else. 

No modern astronomer with a reputation to lose 
would now dream of endorsing the arguments of 
Galileo for the diurnal motion of the earth. And the 
heliocentric theory was publicly taught by Coper- 
nicus and others before he was born. He was, 
however, a man of genius, and notwithstanding 
the many squabbles his quick temper and sarcastic 
tongue and pen got him into, he was pensioned by 
his friend Pope Urban VIII., and he continued to 
receive that pension until the day of his death. 
This naked fact is enough to silence the cry that 
the Church is the enemy of science. The enemies 
of Galileo were the scientists of his own time, who, 
like many of their modern brethren, were stiff- 
necked and wise in their own conceit. He would 
have saved himself much trouble if he had taken 
the advice of his friend Monsignor Dini. k ' Write 
freely," said that friend, " but keep out of the sac- 
risty." This is equally good advice for the mod- 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 123 

ern scientists, who, not satisfied with their retorts 
and gases, must needs be theologians, metaphysi- 
cians, interpreters of scripture and critics of Moses. 
No man can know all things. 

Ingersoll. — Certainly, Christianity has done noth- 
ing for art. 

Lambert. — This is one of those loose, sweeping 
statements which are found scattered with a liberal 
hand in all your writings. It is not clear what 
you mean by art. But I will suppose you mean 
music, painting, sculpture, architecture, and ask 
you to look over the face of the earth to-day and 
point out those countries where these arts have 
been most cultivated since the advent of Christian- 
ity. Go from pole to pole or follow the sun's light 
as it sweeps like a wing of fire around the globe, 
and when you find where these arts flourish, you 
will find that you are in Christian lands. Now, 
as they have died out everywhere else but within 
the pale of Christianity, we must conclude on gen- 
eral principles that Christianity nourished and en- 
couraged their cultivation and supplied to men of 
genius higher and nobler ideals than the pagan 
world knew. This general argument is enough to 
contradict your statement. But if we were to 
enter into the history of the progress of these arts, 



I2 4 



INGERSOLVS CHRISTMAS SERMON 



the fallacy of what you say would become still 
more apparent. 

Ingersoll. — : The early Christians destroyed all 
the marbles of Greece and Rome they could lay 
their violent hands on. 

Lambert. — When we consider the many revolu- 
tions, social upheavals and invasions from the bar- 
baric North that swept over Southern Europe, we 
are surprised that there still remain so many magnifi- 
cent specimens of Greek sculpture. You seem to be 
ignorant of all these causes of destruction of works 
of art. You forget to mention the destruction of 
art by the iconoclastic followers of the Crescent. 
For you there seems to be but one cause of all 
evils, Christianity. But if what you say be true, 
how comes it that there are so many works of 
Greek art preserved in Christian countries as pre- 
cious heirlooms to-day. The dying Gladiator of 
which Byron wrote, the Marble Faun immortalized 
by Hawthorne, the Laocoon, and a multitude of 
other works of arts to be found in Rome, Naples 
and other cities, stand as silent witnesses of the 
falseness of your assertion. Christians got their 
hands on all of them and preserved them. Had you 
seen the art museums of Rome, Naples and other 
cities in Europe, you would have been less profli- 
gate of speech. 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



I2 5 



Ingersoll. — There have been many artists who 
were Christians, but they were not artists because 
they were Christians. 

Lambert. — What a profound observation. Their 
education was Christian. The arts were taught in 
the Christian schools and universities, where men 
of genius received their instruction. The mas- 
terpieces of Michael Angelo, Raphael, Murillo, 
Canova and hundreds of others were made at the 
instance of Church dignitaries, and these masters 
were ever honored and encouraged by the Church. 
What would these great men have been if brought 
up in Turkey under the Mohammedan religion? 
They had genius, but genius depends for its devel- 
opment on favorable environments, and these the 
Christian Church surrounded them with, and it is 
to these, and their genius, that they owe their 
achievements and their fame. No one but an 
agnostic mole can read the history of Christian 
Europe without recognizing that art as known now 
is the result of Christian influence and encourage- 
ment. 

Ingersoll. — But there were Christians who were 
not artists. 

Lambert. — Here is another profound observation. 
It shows you are a deep thinker and a keen ob- 
server, 



126 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

Ingersoll. — It cannot be said that art is born of 
any creed. 

Lambert. — Another ponderous observation. But 
who ever insinuated that art is born of any creed? 
Is it not to you an inexplicable fact that art flour- 
ishes now only where the Christian creed prevails? 
Where is art outside of Christendom? Did these 
questions never suggest themselves to you in your 
profound meditations? 

Ingersoll. — The mode of expression may be de- 
termined, and probably is, to a certain degree, by 
the belief of the artist, but not his artistic percep- 
tion and feeling. 

Lambert. — The Church never claimed to supply 
men with genius — artistic perception and feeling. 
But she did supply those whom nature had made 
artists with noble and sublime ideals and concep- 
tions, which their genius realized to the senses. 
In other words, Christianity determined the mode 
of expression; opened new fields to the appreci- 
ative eye of the artist, and kindled his ambition to 
put forth his best efforts. 

Ingersoll. — So Galileo did not make his discov- 
eries because he was a Christian, but in spite of it. 

Lambert. — By discoveries I suppose you mean 
his teaching that the earth moves. That was not 
his discovery, for it was taught over a century be- 



REVIEWED BV L. A. LAMBERT. 12 J 

fore he was born. Do you mean his theory of 
tides ? The astronomer of to-day only smiles with 
indulgence on that theory as childish. Shakes- 
peare, who made no pretension as a scientist, 
knew more about the true theory of the tides than 
Galileo, for in 1611, some time before the latter 
published his " Dialogues," he made Camillo say: — 

"Swear his thought over 
By each particular star in Heaven, and 
By all their influences, you may as well 
Forbid the sea for to obey the moon, 
As, or by oath, remove or counsel, shake 
The fabric of his folly. " 

The astronomer now knows that the theory indi- 
cated by the Bard of Avon is the true theory, 
while that of Galileo was erroneous. Then what 
discoveries did Galileo make that contradicted the 
Bible or his creed? Was it the invention of the 
telescope? But he did not invent it. Was it the 
discovery of the moons of Jupiter? But what is 
there in the moons of Jupiter contrary to the 
Bible or to Galileo's creed? What a heap of mis- 
erable, ignorant chaff goes under the name of 
knowledge. As Shakespeare says : 

" I had rather be a tick in a sheep than such a valiant 
ignorance." (Troillus and Cressida.) 



128 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

CHAPTER V. 

Ingersoll. — Kepler did not discover or announce 
what are known as the " Three Laws " because he 
was a Christian, but, as I said about Galileo, in 
spite of his creed. 

Lambert. — What is there in the laws of Mr. 
Kepler against his creed? Let us see. The first 
law is that : The planets revolve about the sun in 
ellipses, having the sun in one of the foci. Will 
you point out wherein the law contradicts the 
vScriptures? Copernicus, and after him Galileo, 
believed the planets revolved about the sun in 
circles, but I find no text of scripture that says 
they don't revolve in ellipses, and therefore 
cannot see what it had to do with Kepler's creed. 
The second law is that : If a line be draw?z from 
the centre of the sun to any planet, that line, as it is 
carried forward by the planet ; , will sweep over equal 
areas in equal portio?zs of time. Now, I cannot 
find anything from Genesis to Revelations speak- 
ing of the relation between the movement of radius 
vector and time. Please point this out in your 
next lecture. The third law is that : The squares 
of the periodic times of the planets are as the 
cubes of their mean distances froin the sun. I 
can see nothing in Kepler's Bible or creed that 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



129 



treats of these dynamic laws. There is nothing in 
either about the cubes or squares or mean distances 
from the sun. It is a pity there is no one with the 
genius of Kepler to calculate your mean — very 
mean — distance from the truth when you discuss 
Christianity. 

Ingersoll. — Every Christian who has really found 
out and demonstrated and clung to a fact incon- 
sistent with the absolute inspiration of the Scrip- 
tures, has done so certainly without the assistance 
of his creed. 

Lambert. — You here, as usual, assume too much. 
I deny that any Christian or any one else has ever 
found out and demonstrated a fact inconsistent 
with the absolute inspiration of the Scriptures. 
With this denial before you, you must, if you pre- 
tend to be a logician, prove your statement. To 
do this three things are necessary: First, you must 
prove that the so-called "fact" is a demonstrated 
fact ; and second, you must prove that you have 
the true meaning, not your interpretation, of the 
inspired Book; and lastly, that there is a real, 
not merely an apparent, contradiction. But all 
these difficulties you skip over with the ease and 
dexterity of a French dancing master, and assume 
it all to be done. You are not reasoning, you are 

only talking. 
I.C.S.— 9 



i 3 o 



INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 



Ingersoll. — When our ancestors were burning 
each other to please God — ■ 

Lambert. — You should say " under pretense of 
pleasing God." They followed their ambitions and 
passions as men have done before and will do on 
one pretense or another till Gabriel blows his trum- 
pet. 

Ingersoll. — When they were ready to destroy a 
man with sword and flame for teaching the rotund- 
ity of the world, the Moors in Spain were teaching 
geography to their children, with brass globes. 

Lambert. — When they were ready to, etc. Why 
did you halt or hesitate here? The venerable Bede 
taught the rotundity of the earth before your be- 
loved Moors had established themselves in Spain. 
He was canonized. And Gerbert in the tenth cen- 
tury used a globe in teaching astronomy. The his- 
tory of the Moors in Spain is the history of wars 
and bloodshed from the time they invaded that un- 
happy country till they were whipped out of it. 

Ingersoll. — The Moors in Spain were teaching 
geography to their children, with brass globes. 

Lambert. — And while the Moors were so occu- 
pied, the Christian missionaries and teachers were 
teaching literature, the classics and the sciences 
in the schools of Europe. It is not necessary to 
lose time and space in naming the educational 



REVIEWED BY L. A. LAMBERT. 131 

establishments which laid the foundation of our 
present civilization. Any text-book of history will 
give you the information. But as you are fond of 
contrasts, we will draw another. You say these 
Moors, Berbers and Mohammedans were intellec- 
tually far beyond the Christians. Well, centuries 
have passed and Christian and Mohammedan influ- 
ences have had full opportunity of development. 
The first has progressed till it has produced the 
highest civilization in the world in political liberty, 
literature, and the arts and sciences. The second 
retrograded till the Moors have become a tribe of 
wandering cut-throats on the northern coasts of 
Africa, whom Christian nations have had to punish 
for their piracies. Our own government had to 
teach them a lesson of good behavior with shot and 
shell. And the Mohammedans of Turkey and Arabia 
are reverting into barbarism. Where are the arts 
and sciences among them now? You have admitted 
that these people started out with greater advan- 
tages than Christians, plus brass globes and Mo- 
hammedanism, while the poor, ignorant cut-throat 
Christians started out with every disadvantage, 
plus Christianity. Compare the two civilizations 
and the countries under them to-day. Look on this 
picture and then on that. 

Ingersoll. — It has been very poetically said by 



132 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

Mrs. Browning that " science was thrust into the 
brain of Europe on the point of the Moorish lance.'*' 
Lambert. — It would have been of more conse- 
quence if it had been truthfully said. You are like 
Mopsa in " Winter's Tale :" — 

" I love a ballad in 
Print, a'-life; for then we are sure they are true." 

But what sciences did these Moors punch into 
our European heads with lances? 

Ingersoll. — From the Arabs we got our numer- 
als, making mathematics of the higher branches 
practical. 

Lambert. — Baron Von Humboldt was not a poet 
like Mrs. Browning, but it will be conceded that 
he is a better authority in science and its history. 
This renowned scholar says: "The profound and 
important historical investigations to which a dis- 
tinguished mathematician, M. Chasles, was led by 
his correct interpretation of the so-called Pytha- 
gorian table in the geometry of Boethius, render 
it more than probable that the Christians in the 
West were acquainted even earlier than the Ara- 
bians with the Indian system of enumeration ; the 
use of the nine figures, having their value deter- 
mined by position, being known by them under 
the name of the system of the Abacus." ("Cos- 
mos," vol, ii., pages 226 and 358.) 



RE VIE WED BT L. A. LA MBER T. 



r 33 



Speaking of the so-called Arabic numerals, the 
Encyclopaedia Britannica (art. arithmetic) says : 
''They are now generally acknowledged to be of 
Indian origin. ... It was probably in the fol- 
lowing century (that is, the eleventh) that the 
Arabs introduced the notation into Spain." Now 
it is known that Gerbert, Pope Sylvester II., 
taught these Indian numerals in the tenth century. 
I think the scientist Humboldt's authority is good 
enough to offset that of the poet. While on the 
question of mathematical science, we may draw 
another comparison between the condition of math- 
ematical science in Mohammedan countries at the 
present time as compared with Christian countries. 

Ingersoll. — We also got from them (the Arabs) 
the art of making cotton paper, which is almost at 
the foundation of modern intelligence. 

Lambert. — Then why did they not continue to 
use that art and compete in the race of intelligence ? 
Compare the intelligence of modern Christian Eu- 
rope with that of Mohammedan Turkey, Egypt 
and Africa of to-day ! Arabia lies between India, 
where paper was manufactured, and Southern 
Europe. The Mohammedans, among other of their 
prowling and robbing expeditions, took, in 702, 
Samarkand, where they learned to make cotton 
paper and introduced it into Europe. As cotton 



[ 34 



INGERSOLVS CHRISTMAS SERMON 



does not grow in Europe, owing to the climate, it 
is natural that European peoples would know noth- 
ing of its use until introduced by somebody, and it 
is also natural that the intervening nation should 
introduce it. We can see no argument against 
Christianity in this, as Christianity received no 
commission to teach people the use of the cotton 
plant. That was left to the enterprise of commerce. 
It is strange you have no suggestions to make to 
the founder of Christianity on the advantages of 
paper and calico. I am not aware that the Koran 
gives any instructions on the subject. But com- 
pare the use of that plant in Christian and Moham- 
medan countries at the present day, and what is the 
conclusion we must come to in reference to com- 
parative enterprise and intelligence? 

Ingersoll. — We learned from them to make cot- 
ton cloth, making cleanliness possible in Christen- 
dom. * 

Lambert. — What I have said about cotton paper 
applies equally to cotton cloth. It was an Indian 
invention, brought to the West through Arabia. 
Again I say, compare the use and manufacture of 
cotton cloth in Christian and Mohammedan coun- 
tries to-day, and draw a conclusion. Soap is a 
more useful article in the way of cleanliness than 
cotton. What a pity you could not introduce it to 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



135 



filthy Christians on the point of a Moorish lance. 
As you are so fond of those Arabian Mohammedans, 
it is strange you would not prefer to live among 
them. But you know better. If you lived among 
them and talked against their religion and Koran as 
you talk against the religion and Bible of Chris- 
tians, among whom you live in peace, they would 
bow-string you or tie you up in a sack and throw 
you into the Bosphorus, where no doubt you would 
float, buoyant as a gas bag. 

Ingersoll. — It will not do to say that the religion 
of the Greeks was true because the Greeks were 
the greatest sculptors. 

Lambert. — It is a great advantage to have a man 
among us who is able to clear up this obscure point 
with a dash of his pen. But who ever claimed it 
would " do to say " it? That is what I would like 
to know. I am not aware that the Greeks ever 
made such a claim, or that any one made it for 
them. Then why argue against a position that no 
one seems to know anything about? 

Ingersoll. — Neither is it an argument in favor of 
monarchy that Shakespeare, the greatest of men, 
was born and lived in a monarchy. 

Lambert. — Neither is it an argument against a 
republic that Ingersoll lives and talks gush, blas- 
phemy and cheap learning in it. But it is an 



136 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

argument that a Christian people love liberty and 
will put up with abuse of it rather than abolish the 
use of it. 

The works of Shakespeare are a proof of the 
beneficent influence of Christianity, for those mas- 
terpieces of thought are inexplicable if you take 
away the Christian truths and moral principles 
upon which the mighty fabrics of his genius are 
based. If Shakespeare's works were forgotten, 
and a thousand years hence a copy were found, the 
reader would know that their philosophy and mo- 
tive are Christian. It fits only in Christian civili- 
zation and out of it is unintelligible. His genius 
was informed and directed by Christian thought. 
It is well to remember that this wonderful man was 
a Christian. 

Ingersoll. — As a matter of fact the civilization 
of our time is the result of countless causes with 
which Christianity had little to do except by way of 
hindrance. 

Lambert. — Then how account for the fact that 
the civilization of our times is found only where 
Christian influence and teaching prevail? There 
are four kinds of civilization — the Chinese, the 
Indian, the Mohammedan and the Christian, and the 
last is the civilization you refer to when you speak 
of " the civilization of our time." It is the result 



REVIEWED BT L.A.LAMBERT. 



J 37 



of the Christian idea of life and human destiny, 
spurring the human intellect to its highest activity 
and directing it to its highest development. Elim- 
inate it from human affairs and the present state 
of enlightenment is inexplicable. Your dashing 
statement will not prevail against the great think- 
ers of modern times. Vigor of assertion does not 
supply the place of truth. 

Ingersoll. — Does the Doctor think that the ma- 
terial progress of the world was caused by this 
passage: " Take no thought for the morrow? " 

Lambert. — Speaking for myself, I should say 
that the material progress of the world is by no 
means the highest progress of the world. I believe 
that a Thomas of Aquin, a Michael Angelo, a 
Raphael, a Copernicus, a Galileo, a Kepler, a Dante, 
a Shakespeare, a Newton, a Descartes and a Leib- 
nitz do more honor to humanity and express a 
higher progress and civilization than all your Girards 
and Astors, Vanderbilts and Goulds, Rothschilds 
and Rockefellers, syndicates and corporations in ex- 
istence put together. Intellectual progress stands 
on a higher plane than mere material progress — 
than wheat deals, coal deals, petroleum deals and 
other deals by which the wealth of a nation is ab- 
sorbed by the few to the detriment of the many. 
But as you believe that nothing but matter and its 



138 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

forms exist, your low groveling and gross idea of 
progress is a matter of course, as with your philos- 
ophy there can be no spiritual, moral or intel- 
lectual world. But even this material progress is 
the result of the higher, the intellectual progress 
and energy with which the genius of Christianity 
inspired those under its influence — for outside this 
Christian influence there is not even material prog- 
ress. This material progress follows the light of 
Christianity as the waves of the ocean heave up 
and follow the light of the moon. It is needless 
to say that it is not because of any one text of 
Scripture or any one Christian law, and no one 
should ask such a foolish question. It is the result 
of Christianity as a unit of force and influence 
extending its energies in every field of human 
activity. 

Ingersoll. — The Rev. Mr. Peters, in answer, 
takes the ground that the Bible has produced the 
richest and most varied literature the world has ever 
seen. 

Lambert. — His ground is solid and invincible, as 
you would have seen if you had allowed your power- 
ful mind to meditate long enough on it, to take in 
its full import. It is not too late yet. We will 
meditate on it together. 

Ingersoll. — This, I think, is hardly true. 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 139 

Lambert. — You think. 

Ingersoll. — Has not most modern literature been 
produced in spite of the Bible? 

Lambert. — Do you ask this question for informa- 
tion, or do you insinuate it as a sort of interroga- 
tive argument? But in any case I answer that 
most modern literature has not been produced in 
spite of the Bible, and I will go further and say it 
would not have been produced at all if the Bible 
and Christianity had not existed. But proceed. 

Ingersoll. — Did not Christians, for many genera- 
tions, take the ground that the Bible was the only 
important book? 

Lambert. — No, they did not. 

Ingersoll. — And that books differing from the 
Bible should be destroyed ? 

Lambert. — No, they did not. Having answered 
each question categorically I will now reply to the 
general drift of your interrogative argument — 
which is the lowest and most non-committal kind 
of reasoning known to logic. A system of religion, 
when its doctrines once take possession of a peo- 
ple's mind, develops itself in their individual, 
social, political, ethical and aesthetical life, and be- 
comes the foundation of all these forms. To the 
assthetical life belong literature, art and science. 
Hence it is that the books which contain the dog- 



140 



INGERSOLUS CHRISTMAS SERMON 



mas of a religious system are the foundation, the 
source from which are developed the habits of 
thought, the literature, arts and sciences of a peo- 
ple whose minds have been imbued with those 
dogmas of fundamental religious principles. The 
writings of Lao-tse and Confucius are the basis of 
Chinese social, political and ethical life, and the 
foundation of their art, science and literature. 
The Zend-Avesta of Zoroaster is the same for the 
Persians, the Vedas and the writings of Gautama 
Buddha for the East Indians, the Koran for the Mo- 
hammedans, and the Bible for the Jews and Chris- 
tians. Now all these peoples have, during the 
course of ages worked out in their forms of life and 
thought those dogmas which once took possession 
of them. Hence the difference in their life, his- 
tory, literature and art. Now as the writings of 
Confucius form the basis of Chinese literature 
and the Koran that of Mohammedan, so in like man- 
ner the Bible is the foundation of Christian litera- 
ture. You will observe as the books differ the 
literature differs, and as Christian literature is the 
most excellent in the world — the fundamental 
religious principles which are found in the Bible 
are the most excellent and true. An apple-tree 
produces apples, a pear-tree pears, a peach-tree 
peaches — each according to the nature of the life 



REVIEWED BT L. A.LAMBERT. Y \\ 

that animates its roots. All these various civiliza- 
tions and literatures are the fruits of the different 
religious systems. The founder of Christianity 
says : " By their fruits ye shall know them." By 
Christian literature I do not mean only books 
that have been written on Christian subjects or in 
defense of Christian doctrines, but the whole body 
of literature of whatever kind and character that 
is called Christian in contradistinction with Pagan, 
Chinese, Indian, Mohammedan literature, in a word, 
all that vast intellectual structure that has been 
built up in the Christian world and life during the 
last eighteen hundred years. And I say that the 
word of God is the source, foundation and centre 
of it all — the leaven in the dough. What! you will 
ask, is Shakespeare and Moliere and Lope de Vega 
and all the works of fiction and history and art and 
sciences, Christian literature? I answer yes. They 
are all the result of that intellectual fermentation 
produced by the introduction of Christian revela- 
tion into human society, and the influence it threw 
around the human mind. Even the infidel cannot 
throw off the influence in which he is born and 
grows up, for his mind is like the chameleon ; it 
takes its color from the food on which it feeds 
and the environments in which it lives. Hence, the 
thoughts, even of the infidel in the Christian pale, 



142 INGERSOEL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

run parallel to or against Christianity. However he 
may try to avoid it, his thoughts move in reference 
to Christianity. He cannot think like a Chinese or 
a Hindoo. He must think in Christian modes of 
thought — even when he fights against it. It was 
probably thoughts like these that the Rev. Mr. 
Peters had in mind when he said that the Bible 
produced the richest and most varied literature in 
the world. But did not Christianity destroy books 
that differed from the Bible? Even granting this, 
it would not help your argument, for Rev. Mr. 
Peters referred to a literature that exists, not to a 
literature that is destroyed. 

Ingersoll. — In short, the philosophy that en- 
lightens and the fiction that enriches the brain, 
would not exist. The greatest literature the world 
has ever seen is, in my judgment, the poetic — the 
dramatic; that is to say, the literature of fiction in 
its widest sense would never have been published. 

Lambert. — No one who reads your writings need 
be told that you are fond of fiction. But all this 
great literature you speak of was published in 
Christian times and countries. Dante, Alfieri, 
Metastasio, Goldoni, Silvio Pellico and others in 
Italy ; Calderon, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, in Spain ; 
Moliere, Le Sage, Racine, in France; Spencer, Ben 
Jonson, Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Milton, 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 143 

Tennyson, and others in England, were Christians, 
and were applauded, encouraged and supported by 
Christians. 

Ingersoll. — Certainly, if the Church could have 
had control, the plays of Shakespeare would never 
have been written. 

Lambert. — Shakespeare lived and wrote under 
Elizabeth and James. Under these two monarchs 
the Church of England held full sway, and many 
were put to death on account of their religion ; and 
I do not see why they could not have hanged or 
beheaded Shakespeare if they had so desired. But 
he lived, encouraged by monarchs and people, all of 
whom were Christians, and died in peace in the 
Christian faith, as the following extract from his 
last will and testament will show: — 

" In the name of God, Amen. I, William Shakes- 
peare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, in the county of 
Warwick, gent., in perfect health and memory, 
(God be praised!) do make and ordain in this my 
last will and testament in manner and form follow- 
ing; that is to say : First, I commend my soul 
into the hands of God my Creator, hoping and as- 
suredly believing, through the only merits of Jesus 
Christ my Savior, to be made partaker of life 
everlasting; and my body to the earth, whereof it 
is made." 



i 4 4 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

Such is the creed that gave direction to the 
mighty genius of the greatest poet that ever wrote. 
You have a lecture on Shakespeare, and no doubt 
studied him somewhat, besides what you ate to 
prepare it. You probably read his will, and yet 
you write : "If the Church could have had control, 
the plays of Shakespeare would never have existed." 
Is it honest? 

Ingersoll. — Thousands of theological books have 
been written on thousands of questions of no pos- 
sible importance. Libraries have been printed on 
subjects not worth discussing, — not worth thinking 
about, — and that will, in a few years, be regarded 
as puerile by the whole world. 

Lambert. — There is no doubt of it. You have 
written some works on Moses and other scripture 
subjects. A great many useless books have been 
printed and are being printed, which time has rele- 
gated and will relegate to trunk makers. But the 
fact still remains that Christians were the founders 
of the great libraries where books on science, his- 
tory, philosophy, theology, classics and the drama, 
were preserved with care. This fact alone is enough 
to disprove your oft-repeated assertion that Chris- 
tianity is the enemy of learning, for had it been it 
would have imitated your beloved Turks who de- 
stroyed the great Alexandrian library. The argu- 



REVIEWED BV E. A. LAMBERT. 145 

ment of the Mohammedan leader in justification of his 
act of vandalism was that if that celebrated library 
contained more than the Koran, it contained too 
much and should be destroyed. If it contained the 
same, it was unnecessary and should be destroyed ; 
and if it contained less, it was insufficient and should 
be destroyed. So it was to be destroyed in any 
case. It is unnecessary to say that Christianity 
never adopted this destructive logic. 

Ingersoll. — The best modern historians of whom 
I have any knowledge are Voltaire, Hume, Gibbon, 
Buckle and Draper. 

Lambert. — Your admiration is accounted for 
when we know that all these writers are anti-Chris- 
tians. But to show the value of your judgment of 
the character of historians, I will give the opinions 
of some men whose judgment will be considered of 
more weight than yours. And first as to Voltaire, 
as you mention him first. 

Frederick Schlegel writes : " Whilst French lit- 
erature was stocked with the productions of T sly 
narrators, couched in respectable and easy diction, 
it was altogether without a really classic national 
history, the work of some great original genius. 
Of this want, then, Voltaire was fully cognizant, 
and, in accordance with the comprehensive grasp 

of his ambition, he sought to supply that want. 
I.C.S.— 10 



^46 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

France herself acknowledged the utter failure of 
his attempt ; and that neither in point of art nor 
of representation and style, suited to the range of 
history, can he for a moment be compared, I will 
not say with the best ancient authors, but with the 
leading historians of England." 

Mathews in his "Hours with Men and Books" says: 
"The man who has not a high ideal of the histo- 
rian's office, can never achieve success as one." 
44 History," wrote Voltaire to a friend, "is, after 
all, nothing but a parcel of tricks we play with the 
dead. As for the portraits of men, they are nearly 
all the creatures of fancy ; 'tis a monstrous piece 
of charlatanry to pretend to paint a personage with 
whom you have never lived." Lecky, himself a 
rationalist, in his "Rationalism in Europe," says 
that Voltaire has a deep stain upon his memory — 
"A dark, damning stain which all his services can 
never efface : He applauded the partition of Po- 
land." 

You probably never read 4 ' Letters of Certain 
Jews to Voltaire," in which he is proved to be as 
untrustworthy in his statements about the Bible as 
even yourself. 

You next mention Hume as one of the best 
modern historians. 

Gf this historian, Lecky says: "Whilst Bishop 



REVIEWED BE L. A. LAMBERT. 



147 



Horsley was proclaiming that subjects had nothing 
to say to the laws except to obey them, Hume was 
employing all his skill in investing with the most 
seductive colors the policy of the Stuarts, in render- 
ing the great supporters of liberty in the seven, 
teenth century odious or ridiculous, and in throw- 
ing into the most plausible aspects the maxims of 
their opponents." 

Of this same Hume. Schlegel wrote: ik He can 
only be regarded as an eminent party historian, 
the first in his peculiar method and view, not the 
truly great author of a performance at once natural 
in spirit and in genius. His description of earlier 
times is very unsatisfactory; having no affection 
for them he could not sufficiently realize them." 

i% It was," says Mathews, '* a favorite boast of his 
(Hume's) that his first account of the Stuarts was 
free from all bias and that he had held the balance 
between Whig and Tory with a delicate, impartial 
hand. Ten years after the first publication of his 
work, irritated by the outcry against him 4 for 
presuming,' as he expressed it, ' to shed a generous 
tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl of 
Stafford,' he avenged the censure by recasting his 
historical verdicts, so as to render them offoisive 
to the party that attacked him . . . Hume 
changed the description of Mary's character, in his 



148 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

history, because his printer said he would lose five 
hundred pounds by the publication of it. ' Indeed,' 
said Hume, ' he almost refused to print it; so I was 
obliged to alter it as you saw.' . . . We need 
not be surprised, therefore, that the searching in- 
vestigation, to which his history was subjected 
some years ago by George Brodie, brought to light 
so many departures from truth both wilful and 
intentional." 

Cobbet's opinion of Hume is given in his usual 
vigorous style. He describes his " certain, unques- 
tioned facts " as " a tissue of malignant lies " and 
speaks of " the malignity of this liar " who was " a 
great, fat fellow, fed in considerable part out of 
public money, without having merited it by any real 
public service." 

Coleridge in his " Biographia Literaria " accuses 
Hume of having stolen bodily his famous " Essay 
on Association " from the Commentary of St. 
Thomas Aquinas on the " Parva Naturalia " of 
Aristotle. 

Macaulay says : "Hume is an accomplished ad- 
vocate. Without positively asserting much more 
than he can prove, he gives prominence to all the 
circumstances which support his case; he glides 
lightly over those which are unfavorable to it ; his 
own witnesses are applauded and encouraged : the 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



149 



statements which seem to throw discredit on them 
are controverted; the contradictions into which 
they fall are explained away ; a clear and connected 
abstract of their evidence is given. Everything that 
is offered on the other side is scrutinized with the 
utmost severity ; every suspicious circumstance is a 
ground for comment and invective; what cannot 
be denied is extenuated or passed by without no- 
tice ; concessions even c ire sometimes made ; but this 
insidious candor only increases the effect of the vast 
mass of sophistry. 1 '' " The same author," says 
Gibbon , ' ' deserves very severe censure on the same 
ground." 

Professor Adamson in the "Encyclopaedia Bri- 
tannica," says of Hume's " History of England : " 
4 'It has been the business of subsequent historians 
to correct his misrepresentations so far as they re- 
ferred to the period of which he had fair knowledge, 
and to supersede his accounts of those periods 
which his insufficiency of knowledge disabled him 
from treating in a manner worthy of him. The 
early portion of his history may be regarded as now 
of little value." 

As to Gibbon, the author of " Hours with Men 
and Books," writes : " The author of ' The Decline 
and Fall of the Roman Empire ' has Gibbonized 
the vast tract over which he has traversed. The 



150 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

qualities of the historian's character steal out in 
every paragraph ; and the reader who is magnetized 
by his genius rises from the perusal of the vast 
work informed of nothing as it was in itself, but of 
everything as it appeared to Gibbon, and especially 
doubting two things — that there is any chastity in 
women or any divine truth in Christianity ." 

Macaulay says of Gibbon : " He writes like a man 
who had received some personal injury from Chris- 
tianity, and wished to be revenged on it and all its 
professors." 

And Whately says of Gibbon : " His way of 
writing reminds one of those persons who never 
dare look you in the face." 

As to the other two whom you mention, Buckle 
and Draper, I know little, but as you put them in 
your list I deem that alone sufficient reason to con- 
clude that they are of the same kidney as the others. 

There, Mr. Ingersoll, are the men you name as 
the best modern historians. Of course, you qual- 
ify your statement by saying " of whom I have any 
knowledge — " which is a very important qualifica- 
tion indeed. 

Ingersoll. — The gentleman (Dr. Peters) makes 
another mistake, and a very common one. 

Lambert. — The gentleman made no mistake. 
He struck the true key to reply to you. You had 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 151 

stated that k, the Church was an enemy of educa- 
tion." He, to show the untruthfulness of this, 
adduced an overwhelming array of evidence. What 
did you do? Did you meet him fair and square 
like an honest, candid man and withdraw your 
accusation or attempt to discredit the facts adduced 
by him ? Xo ; you sneaked away from the defense 
of your charge and pretended that his facts were 
adduced to prove the divine origin of Christianity 
— a point that was not then in question. You are 
an eely opponent, and one needs to have sand in 
one's hand to hold you. You constructed a little 
abortion of a syllogism and attributed it to him 
thus : — 

Ingersoll. — This is his (Dr. Peter's) argument: 
Christian countries are the most intelligent; there- 
fore they owe that intelligence to Christianity. 
Then the next step is taken. Christianity being 
the best, having produced these results, must have 
been of divine origin. 

Lambert. — Dr. Peters made no such argument 
in his reply to you and when you say he did you 
show an utter want of that candor of which you 
talk so much. He adduced facts to disprove your 
false statement that "the Church is an enemy of 
education," and the divine origin of Christianity 
came not in the line of his reasoning. Just here 



*5 2 



INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 



is the irksomeness of disputing with you. One 
must be eternally correcting your blunders and mis- 
representations and holding you to keep you from 
dodging issues after you have raised them. There 
is nothing easier than putting silly arguments in 
the mouth of your opponent and then displaying 
your dexterity in oversetting them. It is a little 
game of this kind that I have caught you in here. 
No Christian with any logic in his head argues 
that, because Christian civilization is the highest 
and best in the world that the Christian religion is 
therefore of divine origin. As well might one 
argue that Howe's sewing machine is superior to 
all others; therefore Howe's sewing machine is 
of divine origin. And thus you dodge your oppo- 
nent's fact by misrepresenting him and Christians, 
and then go off with a lot of unmitigated rot about 
Egypt and Rome, Greece and India. I will show 
you how the Christian argues and see what you 
can make of it. Christian civilization is superior 
to any other civilization in the world. Christian 
civilization is the result of Christian principles, 
from which it springs. Therefore Christian prin- 
ciples are superior to the principles underlying any 
other civilization. You will observe that the pur- 
pose here is not to prove the divine origin of Chris- 
tianity, but the superiority of its principles or 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



*53 



fundamental truths, over those of all other reli- 
gions of the world. Having got this far, the mind 
is prepared to consider the arguments for the divine 
origin of the religion which teaches those truths. 
How different this sounds from your tricky presen- 
tation of an argument, which enabled you to ring 
in your familiar pagan roundelay. 

Ingersoll.— Is it not evident to all that if the 
churches in Europe had been institutions of learn- 
ing- 
Lambert. — The churches were the centres around 
which the institutions of learning, the schools and 
universities clustered. 

Ingersoll. — If the domes of cathedrals had been 
observatories — 

Lambert. — I am not aware that it was forbidden 
to make observations from these domes. The tower 
of Pisa is attached to the Cathedral, and it was 
good enough for Galileo. 

Ingersoll. — If the priests had been teachers of the 
facts of nature, the world would have been far in 
advance of what it is to-day. 

Lambert. — In other words, if the ninth century 
had been the nineteenth, this would be the twenty- 
ninth century. 

Ingersoll. — Countries depend on something be- 
sides their religion for progress. 



J 54 



INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 



Lambert. — This is one of those profound obser- 
vations of yours that make your admirers stare in 
wonder. I venture to say you will find nothing 
like it in any philosophy from Plato and Aristotle 
down to Guilielmus Prope, more commonly known 
as Bill Nye. I am sure I never read anything quite 
up to it, and I hope I never will. It has such a 
titillating effect on the risible muscles when it 
comes on one with an honestly-believe-honor-bright- 
courage-of-the-soul sort of suddenness. I frankly 
admit its truth, and all the more readily as I have 
so rarely the opportunity of agreeing with you. 
Without food and drink enough to keep body and 
soul together, progress, at least in this world, would 
be of a rather jejune character. But the progress 
produced by food and drink without fundamental 
truths enough to give the human mind a good 
working majority would be of a fat and lumpish 
kind ; while the indispensable conditions of life, 
plus true religion, give true civilization and prog- 
ress. 

Ingersoll. — Nations with a good soil can get 
along quite well with an exceedingly poor religion. 

Lambert. — Egypt has the most fruitful soil in 
the world. Yearly the Nile feeds it with its rich, 
fruit-bearing deposits, so that it needs but the 
touch of the human hand to make it smile with 



REVIEWED BY L. A. LAMBERT. 



*55 



waving golden grain. Notwithstanding all this, 
it does not seem to have got on quite well with an 
exceedingly poor religion. Turkey is a good soil 
and so is India, Persia and Africa; they have ex- 
ceedingly poor religions there, yet they don't seem 
to have got on quite well, particularly as com- 
pared with less favored countries where they have 
the true — that is the Christian — religion. While 
the latter are alive, flourishing, intelligent and 
civilized, the former seem to suffer under an in- 
tellectual blight that paralyzes energy and pro- 
duces stagnation. During your profound medita- 
tion did this contrast ever occur to your powerful 
mind? True, they got on. but they do not get on 
k ' quite well," as a doctor would tell you after ex- 
amining their condition, though he might assure 
you with professional confidence that they are get- 
ting on "as well as could be expected under the 
circumstances. ' ' 

Ingersoll. — And no religion has yet been good 
enough to give wealth and happiness to human 
beings when climate and soil were bad and barren. 

Lambert. — This is another of your sage remarks. 
But I am not aware that any one ever recom- 
mended religion as a substitute for climate and 
soil, and if you imagine that religion was intro- 
duced into the world as a sort of guano bed plus a 



156 INGERSOLVS CHRISTMAS SERMON 

moral code you have been laboring under a false 
impression. Did it ever occur to you that in those 
parts of the world where nature is most generous 
of her gifts and bestows them on man with lavish 
profusion, religion has but little influence and the 
arts and sciences are unknown? Follow the equa- 
tor with the sun around the globe and you will 
observe this striking fact. 

IngersolL— Religion supports nobody. 

Lambert. — The " American Cyclopaedia," in sup- 
plement to volume 9, tells us that your father was 
a Congregational minister. As a rule, ministers 
and their families are supported by their congre- 
gations on the Pauline principle — that he who 
serves at the altar should live by the altar. There 
was a time, then, when the bread you ate, the bed you 
slept on, and even the little baggy, blue jean breeches 
you wore were supplied from the penny collection 
and the clergyman's salary. You err, then, when 
you say, with such dogmatic fervor, that " religion 
supports nobody." It is in this sense only that re- 
ligion is a " perpetual mendicant " — as you so ele- 
gantly express it. Applause has weakened your 
memory, and made you forget that in your cynical 
and cruel words you were branding your parents 
as agents of religion in its perpetual mendicant 
business, and, like Ham, ridiculing your own 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



*57 



father's nakedness. I do not say you did this un- 
filial thing intentionally, you simply did not think 
of it. I do not speak of these things, which your 
coarse remark has forced me to refer to, as a humil- 
iation or dishonor. The dishonor and disgrace is 
in the forgetting of it, and the gross ingratitude of 
it, and your mean fling at religion as a "mendi- 
cant," in your pride of success and better circum- 
stances. How embarrassed you would be to 
introduce the honest old Congregational minister 
and his wife to your present following ! And how 
embarrassed those old folks would be, and how 
sorrowful ! It is well they sleep in peaceful and 
honored graves. They suffer no pain or shame 
from the coarse diatribes of their unworthy son 
against the religion that cheered their weary way 
through life and gave them hope of peace and rest 
beyond. You mention with pride the name of 
Franklin. Let me quote for your benefit from a 
letter he wrote to Paine to dissuade him from pub- 
lishing his infamous "Age of Reason.'' It runs 
thus: "Among us it is not necessary, as among 
Hottentots, that a youth to be raised into the com- 
pany of men should prove his manhood by beating 
his mother." 

In these remarks some of your kid-gloved, eider- 
down namby-pambies may accuse me of harshness. 



158 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

I ask them what they think — if they can perform 
that operation — of your expression that " religion 
is a perpetual mendicant. It lives on the labor of 
others, and then has the arrogance to pretend that 
it supports the giver," and your saying in refer- 
ence to Christian ministers in relation to Voltaire's 
death : ' c Upon the fences of expectation gathered 
the unclean birds of superstition impatiently await- 
ing their prey." Has a man who talks in this 
way a right to be treated with any reference to 
his supposed delicate feelings ? I believe in deal- 
ing with men like you w r e should not lose time 
or space in concocting fine-spun, delicate turns of 
expression to cover up or soften the thoughts sug- 
gested by your conduct and your sophistries and 
misrepresentations. Your fancy phrases and round- 
ing periods do not make your coarse insults any 
the less offensive and outrageous; and those in- 
tellectually flabby people who imagine you should 
be always touched with lavender kids are the 
best illustrations of Darwin's theory of man's de- 
scent from those burlesque imitations of him — 
the gibbering, grinning, lascivious, unclean, vile- 
smelling monkeys. They are standing evidences 
of an unwholesome and perverted taste. It is 
always proper to call a spade a spade. I cannot 
understand how some men calling themselves min- 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



*59 



isters of Christ, and wishing to be considered as 
such, and drawing their pay as such, and wearing 
long-tailed coats and white neckties as such, can 
phrase their replies to your insults to their creed 
and Creator as if they courted the sunshine of your 
fat smile of approval, fished for compliments at 
your hands, and wished to be considered by you 
as fine, liberal, broad-minded fellows, wonderfully 
out of place in the pulpit. They would honor re- 
ligion more by stepping down out of their pulpits, 
and openly and at once enrolling themselves under 
your flag. It is a small compliment to you to say 
I respect you more than I do them. Their conduct 
is the saddest commentary on the times we live in, 
and they deserve the loaded lash of the whip with 
which you have so frequently scourged them. I 
think if there could be a plea made for the mitiga- 
tion of the sentence of Judas Iscariot, it should be 
said of him that while he betrayed his best friend 
and master, he did not wear a white choker or a 
pious simper and pretend to be His friend after he 
had kissed Him; and that he quit the ministry and 
hanged himself with a halter, thus ridding the 
world of the scandal of his visible continuance. I 
believe on the great day of reckoning, in the Val- 
ley of Decision, the Judge of the quick and the 
dead will look on you and Judas Iscariot with less 



160 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

disapprobation and loathing than on those pander- 
ers to your inordinate vanity. 

You are a child of Christendom. This fact is 
beyond your power to change. You are a prod- 
igal, it is true. But when old age makes the quick 
blood move slowly, when the pleasures that please 
lose their charm and become husks and Dead Sea 
apples, — stale and unprofitable, — when your mind, 
free from the pressure of excitement incident to 
ephemeral applause, settles down to think of the 
problem of human life and destiny in a manner 
and with the mental integrity worthy of it, you 
may come back again weary and heart-sick of all 
shams and rejoice those whom you now scandalize. 
This is a possible but not a probable ending of the 
agnostic scene when the curtain falls and shuts 
from your sight forever the bright world which 
you have made the god of your idolatry. Death 
points its skeleton finger at us all, and when the 
light of eternity begins to shine in our faces, the 
honest man is strong enough to try to put himself 
right with the universe and square his mind to the 
truth. 



REVIEWED BT ~L. A. LAMBERT. 161 

CHAPTER VI. 

Ingersoll.— Neither can I admit that Christianity 
abolished slavery. 

Lambert. — There were twenty millions of slaves 
in the Roman Empire at the advent of Chris- 
tianity. They were freed by Christian teaching 
and legislation. To prove this I will give the 
names of some councils which legislated to protect 
the slave : The council of Elvira in the year 305 ; 
the council of St. Patrick held in Ireland in 450 
required church property to be used in redeeming 
captives. The council of Agde in 506; the council 
cf Epaon in 517 ; the fifth council of Aries in 549 ; 
third council of Lyons in 583 ; second of Macon 
in 585 ; third of Toledo in 589; fifth of Paris in 614 ; 
Rheims in 625 ; fourth of Toledo in 633 ; Emerita 
in 666 ; eleventh of Toledo in 675 ; another of 
Toledo in 694 ; the second of Verneuil which also 
required church property to be used in redeeming 
captives ; the council of Worms in 868. A council 
held in 922 declared that he who sold another into 
slavery was guilty of homicide. A council held 
in London in 1102 forbade the selling of men in 
that city, and called it an infamous traffic. The 
second council of Lyons excommunicated those 

who enslaved others. Pope Gregory XVI. in 1839 
I.C.S.— 11 



162 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

published apostolic letters against the slave trade. 
I might mention many other councils, but I have 
given enough to show the spirit and tendency of 
Christianity on the subject of slavery and that anti- 
slavery is a Christian thought. You will seek in 
vain for it in the writings of the great Greek and 
Roman philosophers. Yet you tell us you cannot 
admit that Christianity abolished slavery and that 
the church exerted itself against slavery! At 
the advent of Christianity slavery existed in all 
countries now in the pale of Christendom. Within 
that pale it exists no longer, while beyond that pale 
it exists still. This fact of itself is sufficient to 
prove that the spirit of Christianity is inimical to 
slavery. 

Ingersoll. — Many of the abolitionists were in- 
fidels. 

Lambert. — Some infidels may have talked about 
abolitionism as they are always ready to do about 
anything, but it was the Christian people with 
muskets in their hands that nerved Lincoln to write 
the Proclamation. I never heard of any infidel 
regiments or brigades in the war — that awkward 
squad can always be founpl in the rear — talking. 
One of their strong points is what John Chinaman 
in his Pigeon English calls talkee, talkee. But I 
must admit, Colonel, you did go to the front to 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 163 

man the deadly breach. Mr. Redpath, an admirer 
of your wit, gives, in illustration of it, an incident 
in your brilliant military career. The rebels, it ap- 
pears, chased you into a corner, when you offered 
to acknowledge the blanked confederacy if they 
would stop their blankety-blanked shooting. So 
you were taken prisoner and General Forest, a 
caustic humorist and a good soldier, showed his 
appreciation of you by expressing a willingness 
to exchange you for a mule ! Redpath does not 
inform us under what cartel you were exchanged, 
or what became of the mule, but when they let you 
go it appears you went home, leaving your com- 
rades in arms nothing but your invaluable example 
to console them for your loss. With your notions 
of life and death, one cannot blame you for avoiding 
the dangers of promiscuous shooting. If this life is 
all you have, you should take good care of it. It 
is what the timorous little rabbit does, and instinct 
is a great thing. But if your comrades had had the 
same "courage of the soul," the South would have 
had a picnic of it, that is, if they did not take the 
notion to stampede us all over the Canadian line. 
Luckily those comrades were inspired neither by 
your courage nor your philosophy. But few skipped 
from the ranks to their safe homes. The great ma- 
jority remained until union, freedom and peace 



164 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

were secured. Your short and brilliant military 
career taught you, as one of the "results of the 
human mind," that soldiering in the South was 
neither as safe nor lucrative as blackguarding the 
Christian religion in the North ; so bravely turning 
your back on the dangers of the battlefield, you 
boldly faced the dangers of the lecture hall, and 
with reckless courage charged on the gods, myths 
and miracles, and on Moses, when you knew he 
was dead long enough not to be dangerous. 

It is well for the country and for the cause of 
freedom that our brave men who languished and 
died in Southern prisons were not of such accommo- 
dating stuff. It is amusing to hear your injudi- 
cious admirer alluding to this incident in your 
short military career as a proof that you are a 
" fellow of infinite jest." He seems not to have 
seen that he exhibited you as a cowardly poltroon 
who later on in the war would have been court- 
martialed and shot. You are not afraid of Al- 
mighty God ; bless you, no, but a loaded musket 
with the glittering eye of a Confederate at the fur- 
ther end of it is quite another thing. It is enough 
to make one sick, and requires great "courage of 
the soul " to look at it. Had the manly men of the 
North been equally " brave " the clank of the chain 
would still mingle with the groans of the slave. 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 165 

It required men like Grant, Sherman and Sheridan, 
who feared God and not the musket, to put down 
the rebellion and give freedom to the slave. And 
now, when these ends have been attained, the talka- 
tive infidel is once more to the front — ready to 
advise and instruct everybody in general and the 
Almighty in particular. 

Slavery is not yet abolished throughout the 
world. The traffic in slaves still exists in Africa, 
notwithstanding the efforts of Christian nations 
to abolish it. Cardinal Levigerie is at the head of 
a society of monks who devote their lives to de- 
stroy the slave traffic. His headquarters are in Al- 
giers. A pathetic incident at the inauguration of the 
movement is worth telling. They had rescued a 
little slave girl whose hand had been cruelly cut 
off by her Mohammedan owners. The stump was 
still bleeding and the amputated hand was secured. 
The Cardinal introduced this little child to the 
assemblage some time after and, while exhorting 
his followers to their work, he raised the poor little 
dead and shrivelled hand in his and pointing it to 
the southward, said : u Comrades, this hand shall be 
our emblem and point out for us the direction of 
our duty, and be to us a constant reminder of it." 
There is no agnostic wishy-washy about this great 
Christian philanthropist. 



1 66 INGERSOLVS CHRISTMAS SERMON 

Ingersoll. — Mr. Peters says: "Why is it that in 
Christian countries you find the greatest amount 
of physical and intellectual liberty, the greatest 
freedom of thought, speech and action? ,: Is this 
true of all? 

Lambert. — Yes, sir, it is true of all as compared 
to non-Christian nations, and that is the compari- 
son implied in Rev. Mr. Peter's question. Com- 
pare any Christian nation with non-Christi-an na- 
tions of the world and you will see the almost 
incredible superiority of the former over the latter 
in intelligence, freedom, progress, prosperity and 
civilization. But that is precisely the comparison 
you wish to avoid. 

Ingersoll. — How about Spain and Portugal? 

Lambert. — Well compare Spain and Portugal 
with Egypt, Turkey, Persia, India, and you will see 
that they are all right. 

Mentioning Spain reminds me that it was Spain, 
through her minister d'Urquija, that enabled 
Humboldt to make his explorations in the New 
World. It was his observations on this expedi- 
tion that enabled him to lay the foundations of 
the science of physical geography and meteor- 
ology, and to Spain we owe the result of his labors, 
as to the same country we owe the discovery of the 
Western Continent. 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 167 

Ingersoll. — There is more infidelity in France 
than in Spain. 

Lambert.— And more immorality. Infidels once 
had control for a short time in France and they 
showed their animus. That short period in the 
history of France is called, by common consent, the 
Reign of Terror. 

Ingersoll. — There is far more infidelity in Eng- 
land than there was a century ago, and there is far 
more liberty than there was a century ago. 

Lambert. — The liberty of England is the out- 
growth of her constitution and Magna Charta, and 
both these reach far back into Christian times when 
modern infidelity was unknown. Those that gather 
the harvest must not for that reason boast of sow- 
ing the seed. The loquacious infidel is on the car 
of progress like the fly on the chariot wheel, ik O, 
my, what a dust we make." Or he may be com- 
pared to the English sparrow, noisy, pugnacious, 
garrulous, useless and a nuisance, appropriating to 
himself the fruits of the laborers who sowed the 
seed of progress and civilization in silence and in- 
dustry ages ago. 

Ingersoll. — There is far more infidelity in Eng- 
land than there was a century ago. 

Lambert. — And more rascality, more immorality, 
more penitentiaries, jails and lunatic asylums. 



1 68 INGBRSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

Your purpose was to make the progress of liberty 
commensurate with that of infidelity, and then im- 
ply that the former is the result of the latter. But 
the sophism is easily exposed by an illustration. 
There is more misery, want, wretchedness and gen- 
eral hopelessness among the common people of 
England than there was a century ago, and you tell 
us that there is more infidelity. Are you prepared 
to infer that the former is the result of the latter? 
If not, you must not insinuate that English liberty 
of to-day is the result of infidelity. 

Ingersoll. — -There is far more infidelity in the 
United States than there was fifty years ago, and 
a hundred infidels to-day where there was one fifty 
years ago. 

Lambert. — There is far more rascality, thieving, 
fraud, murders, suicide, divorces, immorality, jails, 
penitentiaries, houses of correction, lunatic asylums, 
vagrants, tramps and general "cussedness " than 
there was fifty years ago. And we begin to see the 
cause of it when you tell us that there are one hun- 
dred infidels now where there was one fifty years 
ago. There appears to be a " concatenation accord- 
ingly." 

Ingersoll. — Mr. Ballou insists that God has the 
same right to punish us that nature has, or that 
the state has. I do not think he understands what 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 169 

I have said. The state ought not to punish for the 
sake of punishment. 

Lambert. — Mr. Ballou did not make the right of 
the Supreme Being to punish us dependent on the 
right of the state to punish us. He is evidently 
too clear-headed a theologian and logician for that. 
As a theologian he knows that there are no rights 
of any kind whatever in existence that are not im- 
mediately or remotely derived from the Supreme 
Being. And as a logician he knows that to prove 
a greater right by the fact of a lesser one would 
be inconclusive. He knows the law of logic that 
the conclusion must be contained in the premises, 
and that the finite right of a finite state, taken as 
a premise, does not include the infinite right of the 
Infinite Being. The argument runs in the opposite 
direction, for from the infinite right of the Su- 
preme Being we derive the right of the state to 
punish us when we deserve it. In this the Chris- 
tian is logical and consistent. 

Mr. Ballou' s argument was of that kind known 
as ad hominem, an argument at you, and based on 
a concession which he knew you would make as a 
lawyer, namely, that a just state has the right to 
punish to the extent it judges sufficient to vindi- 
cate the outraged majesty of the laws and protect 
the welfare of its members. On this position, 



170 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

assumed rightly to be granted by you, he proceeds 
and asks, has not God, for a stronger reason (be- 
cause the Author of the state and its rights) the 
right to inflict punishment on the guilty to the 
extent He deems necessary to vindicate the out- 
raged majesty of His law and for the welfare of His 
creatures? It seems to me that this line of rea- 
soning will stand the test of the severest logical 
criticism. 

Ingersoll. — The state ought not to punish for the 
sake of punishment. 

Lambert. — Who ever said it ought? Or that the 
Supreme Being ought, or does, or will punish for 
the sake 0/* punishment ? 

Ingersoll. — The state may imprison or inflict 
what it calls punishment, first, for its own protec- 
tion, and secondly, for the reformation of the pun- 
ished. 

Lambert. — This, then, is your position, and I pro- 
pose to show that it is inconsistent with other doc- 
trines taught by you. You are fond of inventing 
makeshift principles to meet particular exigencies, 
and then, when the occasion is past, forgetting 
them and teaching the very opposite. I will show 
now that your present doctrine is a good illustration 
of this. 

All external human actions are the result of 






REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. i~i 

thought — judgments and volitions externalized. 
You say: "Man is a machine, into which we put 
what we call food and produce what we call 
thought." And this process you call a " wonderful 
chemistry." Xow. in view of this doctrine. I ask 
how you can consistently admit in the state the 
right to punish a man for committing an act which 
vou call crime — for instance, killing his neighbor 
with malice aforethought: Surely if man is a 
machine, and his thoughts and acts depend on 
physiological and chemical laws, over which he has 
no control, he cannot be held as guilty of those 
acts, whatever they may be. His very malice 
aforethought is the food he ate before, digested and 
chemicised into thought and volition. What right. 
then, has the state to punish him for a murder 
which was only another form of food? for a mur- 
der which he could not avoid committing? The 
state in inflicting punishment supposes the exist- 
ence of guilt. But there can be no guilt where 
there is no free agencv. and therefore the man not 
being guilt v cannot be punished bv the state, any 
more than the state has a right to punish a locomo- 
tive that kills a man at a crossing, or a horse that 
kicks the brains out of its owner. 

And suppose in spite of your man-machine doc- 
trine the state determines to punish ; for what will 



172 



INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 



it punish him ? Would it punish him for eating 
the food or for the act produced by the food inde- 
pendently of him ? But why punish him for eating 
the murder-food when that very eating was the 
result of something he ate before, and that the 
result of something before, till we trace him down 
and find him clinging to his mother's breast. Was 
she the guilty party? If so we must trace her 
down. 

You will now see how blindly inconsistent you 
are when you grant the state the right to punish, 
in order to make out a point against your opponent. 
But another thought suggests itself — the result 
perhaps of something I ate at dinner. It is this. 
The state is an aggregate of individual man-ma- 
chines or human alembics, all busy digesting or 
spinning food into thought, as the spider spins his 
into web and the silkworm his into silk. Now I ask 
you where or how did this mass of busy machines 
acquire the right to punish anybody for anything? 
Is it the food they eat that generates in them the 
idea of punishment? If not, whence comes the 
idea, or the idea of guilt and innocence? And yet 
you tell us they have the right, "for the reforma- 
tion of the punished." But this is no reason at 
all, for the reformation of the punished does not 
depend on punishment but on what he eats — that 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 173 

is, if your philosophy be true. If it prove anything, 
it only proves that the state has the right to diet 
him. Then it will have the difficult question to 
determine : What food produces innocence, and 
what guilt? It is irksome to argue against so fat- 
uous a philosophy. 

Lest you may try to twist yourself out of these 
results of your teachings, I will take the time and 
space to repeat another of your eloquent outpour- 
ings of concentrated unwisdom and inconsistency. 
Please repeat your doctrine of fatalism as found in 
"The Gods," page 55. 

Ingersoll. — In the phenomena of mind we find 
the same endless chain of efficient causes; the same 
mechanical necessity . . . Every motive, every 
desire, every fear, hope and dream must have been 
necessarily produced. The facts and forces govern- 
ing thought are as absolute as those governing the 
motions of the planets. 

Lambert. — What I have said of your man-ma- 
chine theory is equally, or with still greater force, 
applicable to the system of fatalism which you 
have here announced. While holding such doc- 
trines I cannot see how you can have the "cour- 
age of the soul " to talk about rights of any kind, 
of states or individuals, or of guilt or innocence, 
vice or virtue, good or evil, liberty or slavery ; or 



174 INGERSOLVS CHRISTMAS SERMON 

even of Christianity, itself, for, according to you, all 
these are but links in the endless chain, but var- 
ious phases and evolutions of matter as it works 
out its activities from nowhere as a beginning to 
4t the voiceless dust" as an end. Why declaim 
against Christianity since you must hold that it and 
all of what you call its crimes and iniquities are but 
a necessary phase of thoughtless nature. Why cry 
out against that nature which you tell us is " neither 
merciful nor cruel? " Why not imitate the silly 
cur and bay yourself hoarse at the moon ? 

Ingersoll. — If no one could do the state any in- 
jury, certainly the state would have no right to 
punish under the plea of protection. 

Lambert. — Here there is a subtle sophism lurk- 
ing under the word " injury." Certainly, if no one 
could do any injury to the state, the state could not 
punish for any injury done to it. But as a matter 
of fact any one can do injury to the state — not 
by upsetting or destroying it, mind — but by wound- 
ing the majesty of its authority, by contradicting 
its will as expressed in its laws, by bringing it 
into contempt, and by ill-treating its citizens or 
subjects. 

In all these ways man can injure the state, and 
in the same ways he can injure the Supreme Being. 
He can disturb the harmony of the moral order and 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 175 

create discord and confusion, as a malicious musi- 
cian in a grand orchestra can, by playing false 
notes, destroy the waves of melody and render the 
whole effect discordant and grating to the ear. The 
master of the orchestra would promptly eject him 
and take no further interest in him providing he 
kept out of there. God's providence is the music 
of the spheres, and while He has infinite patience 
with the defective, the weak and the incompetent, 
He has no tolerance for the malicious disturber of 
the harmony of the moral universe. Him He ejects 
— not for his bad playing but for his evil intent for 
which he, being a free agent, is personally respon- 
sible. Now, with this word tc injury," cleared of 
its sophistical double sense, your argument based on 
it ceases to have any force. 

Ingersoll. — And if no human being could by any 
possibility be reformed, then the excuse of reforma- 
tion could not be given. 

Lambert. — In the mind of the state, when it im- 
prisons a criminal his reformation is the last con- 
sideration. He was put in to vindicate the majesty 
of authority and law, and that is done equally well 
whether the criminal reform or not. It removes 
a nuisance and a danger to society and thinks 
little further about it, just as a man will have a 



176 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

cancered hand removed and cast aside to prevent 
the other members from being equally affected. 
It is the duty of the state to see that the punish- 
ment is inflicted, that the criminal does not escape, 
and that no obstacle is placed in the way of his 
reformation. Further than this it need not go. 
The state is not a missionary to criminals. It ap- 
pears that when a man commits a crime and is 
punished, you have no eyes for anybody else. 

You present only two motives to justify punish- 
ment of criminals; the protection of the state from 
44 injury " and the reformation of the criminal. 
Now, while the criminal may not be able to injure 
the state in the sense of destroying it, and while 
he is supposed to be irreformable, I have shown 
that there are still other reasons which justify and 
make it necessary to punish him, namely the vin- 
dication of authority, law and order, the protec- 
tion of citizens and the prevention of law breaking 
by others who are held in restraint by the exam- 
ple of his just punishment, — others on whom love 
of goodness and rectitude and the moral law have 
little hold. Here we find reasons enough after 
eliminating the two of which you speak. These 
points being straightened out, we may proceed. 

Ingersoll. — Let us apply this : If God be infinite, 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 177 

no one can injure Him. Therefore He need not 
punish anybody or damn anybody or burn anybody 
for His protection. 

Lambert. — Injure Him! The reader will please 
notice how the snakey little word " injure " is again 
introduced, and will remember what I said in be- 
ginning these articles, that in almost every sen- 
tence of yours there is a dead fly of sophistry that 
makes a scrutinizing and perhaps tedious analysis 
necessary — a sifting of the sodden mass to let air 
in. You may now repeat the major of your enthy- 
meme. 

Ingersoll. — If God be infinite, no one can injure 
Him. 

Lambert. — God is infinite in every perfection, 
and the origin and source of all reality and all per- 
fection known and unknown to the human mind, 
but it does not follow that no one can injure Him. 
No one, of course, can limit His power or destroy 
His existence, or in any way affect His personality ; 
but every creature of His that He has ennobled by 
the gifts of intelligence and free will can injure 
Him, can insult His infinite majesty and disobey 
His law, can put His finite will in opposition to His 
infinite will, can defy Him and lower Him in the 
esteem of His intelligent creatures, can lie about 

and misrepresent Him, mislead His creatures for a 
I.C.S.— 12 



178 INGERSOLL' S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

time — but always with the understanding that He 
will one day vindicate His majesty, authority and 
law, so that the whole universe will know that He 
is a God who cannot be " injured " with impunity, 
even if to do so He must consign the evil doer, the 
evil-minded free agent, to eternal banishment from 
His presence, which is another way of saying hell. 
He will show in His own appointed time that a free 
agent in this phase of existence can place a cause 
that will have eternal consequences of good or ill, 
of happiness or misery. 

You will please observe that the Supreme Being 
does not punish to " protect " Himself, but that His 
eternal justice and the ultimate equation of things 
make it necessary. 

Ingersoll. — Let us take another step, — 

Lambert. — By all means. Your steps thus far 
taken have not advanced you to any great extent. 

Ingersoll. — Let us take another step. Punish- 
ment being justified only on two grounds, — 

Lambert. — Allow me to interrupt you. It was 
only you who justified punishment only on two 
grounds. We have seen that there are several 
other grounds to justify it, which it was conve- 
nient for the nature of your argument to overlook, 
or forget, or at least not to mention. The whole 
force of your reasoning depended on there being 



REVIEWED BY L. A. LAMBERT. j>jg 

but two grounds, whereas there are several others. 
You are logician enough to see that these several 
other grounds are fatal to your argument, and leave 
it like a punctured balloon to collapse and descend. 
You will now see why I was careful to bring into 
clear light the other grounds . 

Ingersoll. — Punishment being justified only on 
two grounds, — that is, the protection of society and 
the reformation of the punished,— how can eternal 
punishment be justified? 

Lambert. — In my mind's eye I can see your in- 
terrogative attitude and smile of triumph, but in 
as much as your exploded syllogistic process has 
lost the necessary buoyancy to float, we may leave 
it to be picked up and carted away for repairs. 
But, in spite of this, the question with which you 
finish your reasoning deserves calm consideration, 
not particularly for your sake, but for that of those 
who are blinded and dazzled by your sky-rocket 
sophistry. 

How can eternal punishment be justified? On 
this question I meditate thus : The " results of the 
human mind " in the science of physics tell us 
that the raising of the hand, the flip of a butterfly's 
wing, the melody of the Jersey gallinipper or the 
hum of the busy bee produces a result in the 
Universe that changes the whole order of material 



180 INGERSOLIJS CHRISTMAS SERMON 

things and changes them forever, — on the hypoth- 
esis that matter exists forever, — so that in all eter- 
nity things will never be as they were before. 
This is a truth of physical science. Now, as this 
is a truth of science in the world of matter, why is 
it not equally true in the world of mind or the 
moral world. Indeed, according to your own doc- 
trine of materialism it must be true, for if there 
be nothing but matter and its potential forms, and 
matter is eternal ; mind, intellect, soul, conscious- 
ness, being but matter in some of its forms, must 
be equally eternal. Then, if the flip of a butter- 
fly's wing be eternal in its consequences, why is 
not the action of the intellect or soul in this or 
that direction also eternal in its consequences? 
Thus, you see science — not to speak of the Bible 
at all — teaches the eternity of good and evil conse- 
quences, heaven and hell, and as you do not allow 
God to interfere in the eternal laws of things you 
leave Him unable to free the soul from the eternal 
consequences of its acts, while, at the same time, 
you accused Him of cruelty for not doing so. Are 
you not just a little bit unreasonable? 

Ingersoll. — Let us take another step. If instead 
of punishment we say " consequences " and that 
every good man has a right to reap the conse- 
quences of his good actions, and every bad man 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 181 

must bear the consequences of bad actions, then 
you must say to the good : If you stop doing 
good, you will lose the harvest. You must say to the 
bad : If you stop doing bad, you need not increase 
your burdens. 

Lambert. — This is strange language for you to 
use after having taught, as we have seen above, that 
man's thoughts, desires, hopes and fears are the 
result of unalterable laws, over which he has no 
control, and that his thoughts, desires, etc., are 
links in the endless chain of resistless fate. If a 
man be doomed to suffer by laws over which he 
has no control, what difference does it make to him 
whether you call his misery a punishment or a 
consequence? Is it any consolation to the criminal 
to know that his hanging is not a punishment at 
all, but only a consequence? And if suffering 
reaches into the next world, as it must, according 
to the scientific facts noted above, what difference 
does it make to the sufferer whether it is called a 
punishment or a consequence? To him it certainty 
amounts to the same. 

You say to the good man : If you stop doing 
good, you will lose the harvest. But why reason 
thus with him, after telling him that his every 
thought and action is determined by laws independ- 
ent of him? Why treat him as a fool and play with 



182 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

him in this way? If he believes your doctrine of 
fate, he knows that to continue or stop doing good 
is not for him to determine, that his act can be 
neither good nor bad so far as he, a helpless victim 
of fate, is concerned ; that whether he feeds the hun- 
gry or cuts a throat, his action is not his, but the 
mere unavoidable result of a law that is above and 
beyond his control, and that whatever comes to 
him, pain or pleasure cannot, by a free volition of 
his, be sought or avoided. 

You say to the bad man : If you stop doing bad, 
you need not increase your burdens. But the bad 
man will quote your own philosophy against you. 
He will say to you thus : The acts which you call 
mine are not mine. I am a mere machine in the 
matter, and what appears to be my actions are not 
really mine, but the results of laws that I cannot 
avoid or escape. As the law which makes me act is 
the guilty party, let the law suffer the consequences. 
Why should the law compel me to act and then 
leave me to suffer ? Why tell me to stop doing bad 
after placing me under a law that robs me of all 
liberty, of all freedom of action? I may be bad, but 
I am not a fool. I may be bad because I murdered 
a man, but I am no worse than the guillotine that 
has killed more than I have and is as free as I am ; 
it, like me, is governed by a law or a force above and 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



I8 3 



independent of it. Why should it not suffer as well 
as I? Give me no more of your advice. Reserve 
it for the guillotine, the noose, and the electric chair. 
I will go on obeying the law I cannot disobey, and 
the so-called badness or goodness of acts which you 
inconsistently call mine must be attributed to the 
unavoidable law that compels me to act ; and if I 
must suffer the consequences of acts I am not free 
not to do, then I must suffer them, but do not add 
to my sufferings by mocking me with your advice. 
I do not want to suffer before my time. 

Ingersoll. — If it be a fact in nature that all must 
reap what they sow, there is neither mercy nor 
cruelty in this fact and I hold no God responsible 
for it. 

Lambert. — But it is not a fact if there be no Su- 
preme Intelligence to distinguish between good and 
bad acts, and no Supreme Power to reward the one 
and punish the other. It is in view of the exist- 
ence of this Supreme, All-powerful Being that the 
Christian says: " As you sow so shall you reap." 
But you who deny the existence of this Being have 
no ground whatever for affirming that we shall reap 
as we sow. Blind nature cannot distinguish be- 
tween good and bad, moral and immoral acts. 
There is no moral good or bad in physical causes 
and effects. Morality or immorality can be affirmed 



184 INGERSOLUS CHRISTMAS SERMON 

only of the moral order, of the acts of moral agents. 
And of these acts nature can take no cognizance 
and hence cannot be a judge to determine and exe- 
cute the consequences. The purely physical part 
of an act of theft is neither good nor bad, and hence 
can have no corresponding results. He whose 
hand is burned accidently, and he whose hand is 
burned intentionally suffer equal pain, for nature 
makes no distinction. She can see in an act of 
theft only the transfer of money from one man's 
pocket to that of another, and to her eyeless front 
there is nothing to distinguish an honest transfer 
from a dishonest one. She treats alike, him, down 
whose throat arsenic is forced, and him who takes 
it with the intention of suicide. He, then, who de- 
nies the existence of an all-wise Judge, who dis- 
tinguishes the good from the evil intention of a 
moral free agent and rewards and punishes accord- 
ingly, talks nonsense when he says we shall reap 
what we sow. Much of IngersolPs argument de- 
pends on the apparent agreement between him and 
the Christian in the dictum that "as we sow so 
shall we reap." But it is evident there is no real 
agreement. If by "nature" Ingersoll means this 
visible, material universe, nothing is more certain 
than that men do not reap what they sow. If by 
nature he means the whole scope of existence in 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 185 

time and eternity, the same physical laws will con- 
tinue to work out their results and the innocent and 
guilty alike will continue to suffer for all eternity, 
just as we see they are doing now. There is no 
way to readjust things except to admit the existence 
of a Supreme Being, who can distinguish between 
the just and the wicked and intervene between the 
evil cause and its results. 

Grant this Being and the Christian will admit 
that man reaps what he sows; deny Him and there 
is no truth in the sa}dng. 

Ingersoll. — There is neither mercy nor cruelty in 
this fact (that man must reap what he sows). 

Lambert. — But as it is not a fact (without a 
Supreme Being) what have you to say? You 
must say nature is cruel or that it is an irrespon- 
sible creature of a Supreme Being who will in His 
own time see to it that good acts will be ultimately 
rewarded and evil ones punished if not repented 
of. Or, as you express it, good acts will have their 
good consequences and evil ones evil consequences, 
forever. 

Ingersoll. — I hold no God responsible for it. 

Lambert. — That is generous in you. It would be 
too bad if you took a notion to hold Him responsible. 

Ingersoll. — The trouble with the Christian creed 



186 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

is that God is described as the one Who gives re- 
wards and the one Who inflicts eternal pain. 

Lambert. — The trouble is only in your eye. You 
have told us that nature in inducing ' ' consequences' ' 
is neither cruel nor merciful. Now it is difficult 
to see how the same " consequences " become cruel 
when induced by God and called punishments. As 
to eternal pain we have seen that it must follow 
from your own philosophy of materialism. 

Ingersoll. — You must say to the bad: If you 
stop doing bad you need not increase your burdens. 

Lambert. — But what of those things the bad 
have already done? In your philosophy there is 
no place for repentance, restitution or rehabilita- 
tion. For him who has done evil there is no turn- 
ing back, nothing but to suffer the eternal conse- 
quences. No good he may do thereafter can 
change his fate. When we consider that even the 
just man falls, there is little consolation and no 
hope for the poor sinner. Your philosophy on this 
point is the Devil's gospel and you his prophet. 

Ingersoll. — It is admitted that man must bear 
the consequences of his acts. 

Lambert. — It is not admitted unless you admit 
the existence of the Supreme Being Who alone can 
make man bear the consequences of his acts, the 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 187 

Being Who alone knows whether the acts deserve 
good or bad consequences. 

Ingersoll. — If the consequences are good the acts 
are good. 

Lambert. — We have talked of this before and 
have seen that your rule is practically worthless 
since (if there be no God) the consequences of acts 
can never be known. 

Ingersoll. — If the consequences are bad the acts 
are bad. 

Lambert. — We have seen in the case of the ag- 
nostic thief that two sets of consequences followed 
from his act, good consequences to him and his fam- 
ily, and bad consequences to the man from whom he 
stole the money. Now, which set of consequences 
is to determine the nature of the thief's act? If you 
are right the thief's act was both good and bad, as 
the consequences were both good and bad. This is 
against the principle of reason that we cannot affirm 
and deny at the same time the same thing in the 
same sense. 

Ingersoll. — Through experience we find that 
certain acts tend to unhappiness and others to happi- 
ness. 

Lambert. — Through whose experience? Happi- 
ness and unhappiness, like all other modes of being, 
to exist at all must exist in the individual. The 



188 INGERSOLUS CHRISTMAS SERMON 

happiness or unhappiness of a community or society 
is the happiness or unhappiness of the individual 
members of the society. The experience, then, 
which teaches the acts that tend to happiness must 
be individual experience. Now, individuals have 
different tastes, tendencies, desires and impulses, 
so that happiness to one would be unhappiness to 
another. Each individual, then, must learn by per- 
sonal experience what tends to happiness for him. 
This is a necessary result if man has no higher mind 
than the human to teach him. From this it follows, 
according to your theory, that every man has the 
right to do every act that he is intellectually and 
physically able to do, until he learns by experience 
to distinguish those acts that tend to happiness 
from those that tend to unhappiness to him. There 
is no avoiding this conclusion, for all the experi- 
ence of mankind cannot teach him what, with his 
peculiar character, constitution, tendencies and 
propensities, will tend to his personal happiness — 
and aside from personal happiness there is none. 
He stands out alone, in the vast solitude of his own 
personality, with his experiences and characteris- 
tics, for no two men were ever alike. Then, aside 
from the supernatural mind that knows him per- 
fectly, there is nothing but his own personal ex- 
periences to teach him what tends to his happiness. 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 189 

He, therefore, in the nature of the case, has the right 
to do every intellectual and physical act that he can 
do to experiment and find out what tends to his 
happiness. This is the logical conclusion from In- 
gersolPs doctrines. It is a revolting conclusion 
and the doctrine from which it is deduced is equally 
abhorrent. If there were libertines and outlaws 
enough to put it into practice and imbeciles enough 
in the world to permit it to be practiced, courts, 
laws, civilization and society would vanish, and 
man would have to take to the woods and seek 
protection among his more respectable relatives, 
the gibbering monkeys, in the shades of the forests. 
Man's evil propensities would have full excuse and 
encouragement, and the world would be a pande- 
monium of crime. But the world has not gone 
lunatic and Ingersoll' s insane dreams will not pre- 
vail. History proves that experience does not 
teach man what tends to his happiness. The re- 
vealed will and law of the Supreme Being alone 
teaches man to know his true destiny and that his 
true happiness consists in the attainment of the end 
of his creation. 

Ingersoll. — There is still another trouble. 

Lambert. — Yes, the world is full of troubles. 
But tell us about this particular trouble. 

Ingersoll. — This God, if infinite, must have 



190 



INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 



known when He created man exactly who would be 
eternally damned. What right had He to create 
man, knowing that he was to be damned? 

Lambert. — The first thought that occurs here is 
that He Who has the power to create cannot be 
catechised by anything that He creates. You must 
admit that to be, to exist, is a good thing in itself. 
Therefore to cause things or persons to come into 
existence is a good thing. Then, the Supreme Be- 
ing has a right to call into being by His creative act 
whomsoever and whatsoever He wills. No one can 
deny this who admits that existence is a good thing 
or a better thing than non-existence. When I speak 
of the right of the Supreme Being, I simply come 
down to your low plane of thought, for strictly 
speaking, the Supreme Being has no rights what- 
ever, because He is the Right, the Source, Origin, 
and Measure of all rights. When we talk of rights 
we refer to relations between existences, creatures. 
But the Supreme Being is neither an existence nor 
a creature. He is simply the Being, necessary, 
eternal, infinite, the source of thought and of things. 
Having no equal, and being entirely unique, He 
bears no relation to anything, except that of cause, 
and things and thought bear no relation to Him ex- 
cept that of dependence. To talk, therefore, as you 
do, about His rights, is to make the finite intellect, 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 191 

groping as it is, in darkness, doubt and uncertainty, 
the measure of the infinite intellect, the source of 
existence, certainty and truth. A moment's reflec- 
tion will show you how absurd this is. Now with 
this understanding we will discuss what you call 
the "rights" of God. 

Existence being a good thing, God has the right 
to create existences. Intelligence being good, He 
has the right to create intelligences. Liberty being 
good, — you said in a recent lecture, " Liberty thou 
art my God," — He can give liberty to intelligent 
existences. Then to create intelligent free exist- 
ences is good. This settles the question of right. 
It is just here that comes in the gravamen of your 
question. How can the Supreme Being create in- 
telligent, free existences when He knows that some 
of them will abuse their liberty and deliberately 
and with malice aforethought place causes that of 
their very nature lead to eternal painful con- 
sequences to the placer of those causes? The 
answer is very simple. It is this. Existence is a 
real good. Liberty is a real good. But existence 
and liberty make evil a possibility, a mere possibility, 
therefore the Supreme Being had a right to do a 
real good even though from that real good a pos- 
sible evil might follow. This possible evil hap- 
pened, you will say, but why did God permit it 



192 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

to happen? I reply that in giving His intelligent 
creatures liberty He had to include the possibility 
of its happening. He had to deny His intelligent 
creatures liberty or give it to them with the pos- 
sibility of their abusing it. He elected to give it 
to them and hold them responsible for its abuse. 
But why create a man that He knew would abuse 
it? Because the existence of that man is in itself 
a good and will continue for eternity to be a good 
even though the man by his own act should make 
it miserable in reference to himself. His being is 
God's, his mode of future existence is his own. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Ingersoll. — The reverend gentleman (Rev. J. B. 
Hamilton) tells us again the story of the agonies 
endured by Thomas Paine when dying; tells us 
that he then said that he wished his works had 
been thrown into the fire, that he frequently asked 
the Lord Jesus to have mercy on him. Of course 
there is not a word of truth in the story. 

Lambert. — The Rev. Mr. Hamilton has not been 
content to let you have the last word on this sub- 
ject. In a letter published subsequently in the 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



[ 93 



Telegram, he adduces proof of his assertion. I will 
let him speak for himself. 

Hamilton. — Stephen Greliet, the son of a French 
nobleman, who was proscribed by the French rev- 
olutionists, made his home in America. He was 
led from infidelity by the writings of William Penn 
and became a Quaker preacher and missionary. 
The spotless purity of his life, exalted nobility of 
his Christian character, make it impossible for him 
to be charged with misrepresentation or mis-state- 
ment. He says in his biography : — 

" I may not omit recording here the death of 
Thomas Paine. A few days previous to my leav- 
ing home on my last religious visit, on hearing that 
he was ill and in a very destitute condition, I went 
to see him and found him in a wretched state, for 
he had been so neglected and forsaken by his pre- 
tended friends that the common attentions to a sick 
man had been withheld from him. The skin of his 
body was in some places worn off, which greatly 
increased his sufferings. A nurse was provided 
for him and some needful comforts were supplied. 
He was mostly in a state of stupor, and something 
that had passed between us had made such an im- 
pression upon him that some days after my depar- 
ture he sent for me, and, on being told that I was 

gone from home he sent for another Friend. 
I.C.S.-13 



194 tNGERSOLVS CHRISTMAS SERMON 

" This induced a valuable young Friend (Mary 
Roscoe), who had resided in my family and con- 
tinued at Greenwich during part of my absence, 
frequently to go and take him some little refresh- 
ment suitable for an invalid, furnished by a neigh- 
bor. Once when she was there, three of his 
deistical associates came to the door, and in a loud 
and unfeeling manner said : ' Tom Paine, it is said 
you are turning Christian, but we hope you will 
die as you have lived,' and then went away. On 
which, turning to Mary Roscoe, he said: ' You see 
what miserable comforters they are.' 

" Once he asked her if she had ever read any of 
his writings, and on being told that she had read 
but very little of them, he inquired what she 
thought of them, adding, ' From such a one as you 
I expect a correct answer.' She told him that 
when very young his 'Age of Reason ' was put into 
her hands, but that the more she read in it the 
more dark and distressed she felt, and she threw 
the book into the fire. ' I wish all had done as 
you,' he replied, ' for if the Devil has ever had any 
agency in any work he has had it in my writing that 
book.' When going to carry him some refresh- 
ment, she repeatedly heard him uttering the lan- 
guage, ' O Lord ! ' or l Lord Jesus, have mercy upon 



RE VIE WED BT L.A. LA MBER T. 195 

Lambert. — To this I will add the testimony of 
Dr. Manly, Paine's physician. This witness says : — 

"During the latter part of his life, though his 
conversation was equivocal, his conduct was singu- 
lar. He would not be left alone, night or day. 
He not only required to have some person with 
him, but he must see that he or she was there and 
would not allow his curtain to be closed at any 
time. And if, as sometimes would unavoidably 
happen, he was left alone, he would scream and 
halloo until some one came to him. When relief 
from pain would admit, he seemed thoughtful and 
contemplative, his eyes being generally closed, and 
his hands folded upon his breast, though he never 
slept without the assistance of an anodyne. There 
was something remarkable in his conduct about 
this period (which comprises two weeks immedi- 
ately preceding his death) particularly when we 
reflect that Thomas Paine was the author of the 
'Age of Reason.' He would call out during the 
paroxysms of his distress without intermission, ' O 
Lord, help me! God help ?7ief Jesus Christ, help 
me, Lord help me J etc., repeating the same expres- 
sion without any variation, in a tone of voice that 
would alarm the house. 

" I took occasion, during the night of the 5th 
of June, to test the strength of his opinions 



i 9 6 INGERSOLUS CHRISTMAS SERMON 

respecting Revelation. I purposely made him a 
very late visit. It was at a time that seemed to 
suit exactly with my errand. It was midnight. 
He was in great distress, constantly exclaiming in 
the words above mentioned ; when, after a con- 
siderable preface, I addressed him in the following 
manner, the nurse being present: 'Mr. Paine, 
your opinions, by a large portion of the community, 
have been treated with deference. You have never 
been in the habit of mixing in your conversation 
words of cursing. You have never indulged in the 
practice of profane swearing, you must be sensible 
that we are acquainted with your religious opinions 
as they are given to the world. What must, we 
think of your present conduct? Why do you call 
upon Jesus Christ to help you? Do you believe in 
the divinity of Jesus Christ? Come now, answer 
me honestly. I want an answer from the lips of a. 
dying man, for I verily believe you will not live 
twenty-four hours.' I waited for some time at the 
end of every question ; he did not answer, but 
ceased to exclaim in the above manner. Again I 
addressed him: ' Mr. Paine, you have not answered 
my questions ; will you answer them ? Allow me 
to ask again, do you believe, or let me qualify 
the question, do you wish to believe, that Jesus 
Christ is the son of God?' After a pause of some 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 197 

minutes, he answered, ' I have no wish to believe 
on that subject.' I then left him, and know not 
whether he afterwards spoke to any person on any 
subject, though he lived, as I before observed, to 
the morning of the 8th of June." 

To this testimony as to Paine's state of mind, I 
will add that of the Rt. Rev. Edward Fen wick, 
first Catholic Bishop of Cincinnati. He says : — 

"A short time before Paine died, I was sent for 
by him. I was accompanied by F. Kohlman, an 
intimate friend. We found him at a house in 
Greenwich (not Greenwich street, New York), 
where he lodged. A decent looking elderly woman 
came to the door, and inquired whether we were 
the Catholic priests; 'For' said she, 'Mr. Paine 
has been so much annoyed of late by other denomi- 
nations calling upon him, that he has left express 
orders to admit no one but the clergymen of the 
Catholic Church.' Upon informing her who we 
were, she opened a door and showed us into the 
parlor. . . ' Gentlemen,' said the lady, ' I really 
wish you may succeed with Mr. Paine, for he is la- 
boring under great distress of mind ever since he was 
told by his physician that he cannot possibly live, 
and must die shortly. He is truly to be pitied. His 
cries when left alone are heart-rending. ww O Lord, 
help me! " he will exclaim, during his paroxysms 



198 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

of distress; "God, help me; Jesus Christ, help 
me! " — repeating these words in a tone of voice 
that would alarm the house. Sometimes he will 
say, " O God, what have I done to suffer so much?" 
Then shortly after, "But there is no God;" and 
then again, '- Yet if there should be, what would 
become of me hereafter?" Thus he will continue 
for some time, when, on a sudden, he will scream 
as if in terror and agony, and call for me by name. 
On one occasion I inquired what he wanted. " Stay 
with me," he replied, " for God's sake! for I can- 
not bear to be left alone." I told him I could not 
always be in the room. " Then," said he, "send 
even a child to stay with me, for it is a hell to be 
alone y ' 1 never saw,' said she, ' a more unhappy, 
a more forsaken, man. It seems he cannot reconcile 
himself to die.'' 

11 Such was the conversation of the woman, who 
was a Protestant, and who seemed very desirous 
that we should afford him some relief in a state 
bordering on complete despair. Having remained 
some time in the parlor, we at length heard a noise 
in the adjoining room. We proposed to enter; 
which was assented to by the woman, who opened 
the door for us. A more wretched being in appear- 
ance I never beheld. He was lying on a bed suffi- 
ciently decent in itself, but at present bes7neared 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 199 

with fit h; his look was that of a man greatly tor- 
tured in mind, his eyes haggard; his countenance 
forbidding and his whole appearance that of one 
whose better days had been but one continued scene 
of debauch. His only nourishment was milk punch, 
in which he indulged to the full extent of his weak 
state. He had partaken very recently of it, as the 
sides and corners of his mouth exhibited very un- 
equivocal traces of . it, as well as of blood which 
had followed in the track and left its mark on the 
pillow. Upon their making known the object of 
their visit, Paine interrupted the speaker by saying, 
' That's enough, sir, that's enough. I see what you 
would be about. I wish to hear no more of you, 
sir ; my mind is made up on that subject. I look 
upon the whole Christian scheme to be a tissue of 
lies, and Jesus Christ to be nothing more than a 
cunning knave and impostor. Away with you and 
your God, too ! leave the room instantly ! All that 
you have uttered are lies, filthy lies and if I had a 
little more time I would prove it, as I did about 
your impostor, Jesus Christ.' Among the last ut- 
terances that fell upon the ears of the attendants of 
this dying infidel, and which have been recorded in 
history, were the words, ' My God, my God, why 
hast thou forsaken me ? ' 

Ingersoll. — As to the personal habits of Mr. 



200 INGERSOLUS CHRISTMAS SERMON 

Paine we have the testimony of William Carver, 
with whom he lived. 

Lambert. — It was a strange infatuation that led 
you to refer to William Carver for a character of 
Tom Paine. As he is one of your own witnesses 
his testimony is unimpeachable. In a letter to 
Paine, dated December 2, 1806, and published in 
the New York Observer, November, 1, 1877, Wil- 
liam Carver wrote as follows: — 

Ci A respectable gentleman from New Rochelle 
called to see me a few days back, and said that 
everybody was tired of you there, and that no one 
would undertake to board and lodge you. I thought 
this was the case, as I found you at a tavern in a 
most miserable situation. You appeared as if you 
had not been shaved for a fortnight, and as to a 
shirt, it could not be said that you had one on — it 
was only the remains of one — and this likewise 
appeared not to have been off your back for a fort- 
night, and was nearly the color of tanned leather ; 
and you had the most disagreeable smell possible — 
just like that of our poor beggars in England. Do 
you remember the pains I took to clean you? that 
I got a tub of warm water and soap, and washed 
you from head to foot, and this I had to do three 
times before I could get you clean? You say also 
that you found your own liquors during the time 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



20 1 



you boarded with me ; but you should have said, 
1 I found only a small part of the liquor I drank 
during my stay with you ; this part I purchased of 
John Fellows, which was a demijohn of brandy, 
containing four gallons, and this did not serve me 
three weeks.' This can be proved, and I mean 
not to say anything I cannot prove, for I hold 
truth as a precious jewel. It is a well-known fact 
that you drank one quart of brandy per day, at my 
expense, during the different times that vou 
boarded with me, and the last fourteen weeks you 
were sick. Is not this a supply of liquor for dinner 
and supper? Now, sir. I think I have drawn a 
complete portrait of your character ; yet to enter 
into every minutia, would be to give a history of 
your life, and to develop the fallacious mask of hy- 
pocrisy and deception under which you have acted 
in your political as well as moral capacity of life." 

It must have been Poe's Angel of the Odd that 
inspired you to call in William Carver as a witness 
in behalf of Paine. 

The historian Hildreth thus sums up the charac- 
ter of Paine. After quoting an abusive article 
from the Aurora newspaper, in which Washington 
was accused of the "foulest designs against the 
liberties of the people,'' Hildreth adds : — 

" This, indeed, was but a somewhat exaggerated 



202 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

specimen of the abusive articles to be found almost 
daily in the columns of the Aurora, from the office 
of which had just issued a most virulent pamphlet, 
under the form of a letter to Washington from the 
notorious Thomas Paine, whose natural insolence 
and dogmatism had become aggravated by habitual 
drunkenness " 

Again, this same historian says : " Paine, instead 
of being esteemed as formerly, as a lover of liberty, 
whose vigorous pen had hastened the Declaration 
of Independence, was now detested by large num- 
bers as the libeler of Washington" 

Ingersoll. — He (Paine) was the first to advocate 
separation from the mother country. 

Lambert. — This is not true. Paine himself says, 
in his pamphlet called "Common Sense:" "All 
men, whether in England or America, confess that 
separation between the two countries will take 
place one time or another." 

Franklin, before Paine 's pamphlet was published, 
wrote to a friend in Holland, that "American inde- 
pendence is likely to be declared before long." 
It was at Franklin's suggestion that Paine wrote 
his pamphlet. 

Samuel Adams had said in the Massachusetts 
Assembly : " The Declaration of Independence and 
treaties with foreign powers are to be expected." 






REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 2 cn 

Paine's pamphlet was published anonymously — 
a plan to save his neck in case of the failure of the 
cause — in January, 1776. Now, on the 31st of 
May, 1775, the committee of Mecklenburg County, 
North Carolina, met and adopted the following 
resolutions : — 

" They (the committee) conceive that all laws 
and commissions confirmed by or derived from 
the authority of the King and Parliament, are 
annulled and vacated, and the former civil consti- 
tution of these colonies for the present wholly 
suspended." The first resolution declares all com- 
missions granted by the crown to be void. The 
second declares that no legislative or executive 
power exists, except in the provincial congress of 
each province. The sixteenth declares that " what- 
ever person shall hereafter receive a commission 
from the crown, or attempt to exercise any such 
commission heretofore received, shall be deemed an 
enemy to the country." 

Yet in the face of all this, Mr. Ingersoll has the 
supreme effrontery to tell his audience that Paine 
44 was the first to advocate separation from the 
mother country." Was he ignorant of the facts, 
or did he count on the ignorance of his audience? 

Ingersoll. — Paine's "Common Sense" was the 
first argument for separation. 



204 



INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 



Lambert. — This is not true. There were several 
arguments for separation in the shape of the bat- 
tles of Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill and 
Quebec. iL Before Paine had set foot on our soil, 
our revolutionary sires had gone so far that they 
were compelled to go further. Before them was 
success as heroes or death as traitors. There was 
no retreat. Their necks were in the halter before 
they heard that such a man as Paine ever lived." 
(W. H. Piatt). 

Ingersoll. — The moment he (Paine) died, the 
pious commenced manufacturing horrors for his 
deathbed. They had his chamber filled with devils 
rattling chains. 

Lambert. — When we consider that he swilled 
into himself four gallons of brandy in less than 
three w^eeks, according to William Carver with 
whom he lodged, it is not surprising that he saw 
strange things and wished not to be left alone for a 
moment. It is possible that the 4t pious," in their 
ignorance, misinterpreted these symptoms and im- 
agined supernatural causes when there were only 
natural effects. The modern physician would at- 
tribute the symptoms to mania fiotu or delirium 
tremens. 

Ingersoll. — A couple of Catholic priests, in 
all the meekness of arrogance, called that they 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 20^ 

might enjoy the agonies of the dying friend of 
man. 

Lambert. — Bishop Fenwick, one of the priests 
you refer to, wrote an account of this visit in which 
he says : Li A short time before Paine died, I was 
sent for by him^ So what you say of him and his 
friend is in the arrogance of mendacity. 

You may ask why do I drag these disreputable 
habits of Paine from obscurity? Why not exercise 
Christian charity and leave the dead to the silence 
of the grave and to the judgment of his Creator? 
It is because you go about the country attempting 
to canonize him and raise him up above the brave 
and good Christian men, who, by their courage and 
patriotism, achieved our independence. It is be- 
cause in your laudations of this seducer of another 
man's wife, this libeler of Washington, you leave 
no opportunity pass to insult Christian sentiment, 
to defame and degrade those witnesses whose evi- 
dence does not tell in his favor. 

It is because you malign the characters of those 
Christian ministers who treated a coarse blasphemer 
with the contempt he deserved. You complain 
that he was forsaken by those he helped to free. 
But why should they continue to honor a man who 
persisted in insulting, degrading and dishonoring 
that which was dearer to them than life — their 



206 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

religion? Your political hopes have been forever 
blasted by the same conduct, and you must not ex- 
pect a Christian people to condone it as long as you 
persist. It is possible that much of your bitterness 
against the Christian religion is the bitterness of a 
disappointed career. 

The story is told that you were once traveling 
in Illinois and talking as usual about the Bible. 
An old Methodist lady who heard you said: " Well, 
Mr. Ingersoll, the Bible did one good thing at 
least." "What was that, madame? " "It pre- 
vented you from being governor of Illinois." That 
old lady struck the key of your anti-Christian bitter- 
ness, which you would call zeal for truth, liberty, 
enlightenment, but that is mere poetry and deceives 
nobody. Your friends sought recognition of your 
political services, but no administration could carry 
you and survive. This would seem to prove 
that Christianity is not quite as dead as you im- 
agine. 

Before leaving Paine I will quote Franklin's 
letter to him in which he tries to dissuade him 
from publishing his " Age of Reason." It is a letter 
you could meditate on with advantage. You will 
find it in Niles' " Register," vol. XXX., page 397. 

"Dear Sir: — I have read your manuscript 
with some attention. By the argument it contains 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



207 



against a particular Providence, though you allow 
a general Providence, you strike at the foundation 
of all religion. For without the belief of a Provi- 
dence, that takes cognizance of, guards and guides, 
and favors particular persons, there is no motive 
to worship a Deity, to fear its displeasure, or to 
pray for its protection. I will not enter into any 
discussion of your principles, though you seem to 
desire it. At present I shall only give you my 
opinion, that though your reasonings are subtle, 
and may prevail with some readers, you will not 
succeed so as to change the general sentiment of 
mankind on that subject; and the consequence of 
printing this piece will be a great deal of odium 
upon yourself, mischief to you, and no good to 
others. He that spits against the wind spits in his 
own face. But were you to succeed, do you im- 
agine any good will be done by it? You yourself 
may find it easy to live a virtuous life without the 
assistance afforded by religion. You have a clear 
perception of the advantages of virtue, and the 
disadvantages of vice, and possess strength of 
resolution sufficient to enable you to resist com- 
mon temptations. But think how great a portion 
of mankind consists of ignorant men and women, 
and of inexperienced, inconsiderate youth, of both 
sexes, who have need of the motives of religion to 



208 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

restrain them from vice, to support their virtue, 
and retain them in the practice of it until it be- 
comes habitual, which is the great point for its 
security. And, perhaps, you are indebted to her 
originally, that is to your religious education, for 
the habits of virtue upon which you now justly value 
yourself. You might easily display your excellent 
talents of reasoning upon a less hazardous subject 
and thereby obtain rank among our most distin- 
guished authors. For among us it is not necessary, 
as among the Hottentots, that a youth to be raised 
into the company of men should prove his man- 
hood by beating his mother. I should advise you, 
therefore, not to attempt unchaining the tiger, but 
to burn this piece before it is seen by any other 
person, whereby you will save yourself a great deal 
of mortification from the enemies it may raise 
against you, and perhaps a good deal of regret and 
repentance. If men are so wicked with religion, 
what would they be without it? I intend this 
letter itself as a proof of my friendship, and there- 
fore add no profession, but simply subscribe, 

Yours, 

B. Franklin.' 

Ingersoll. — Let me tell you how Voltaire died. 
Lambert. — Well go on so that we can see how 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 



209 



much truth you can tell on that interesting sub- 
ject. 

Ingersoll. — Towards the end of May, 1788, it 
was whispered in Paris that Voltaire was dying. 

Lambert. — This was indeed strange as Voltaire 
was dead and buried ten years before that date. 
You should incorporate your statement in your 
lecture on myths or ghosts, for it must have been 
only the ghost of a whisper. You are a great 
stickler for " facts," and call them legal tender, yet 
in telling when Voltaire died you came within ten 
years of it; but that is, after all, a pretty fair aver- 
age for you, and a small trifle like that is nothing. 
You, no doubt, gave your " honest thought " on the 
subject. At first I honestly thought it was a typo- 
graphical blunder perpetrated by the printer's devil, 
but a few lines further on I found you repeated the 
same date — less one year — and quote Wagniere as 
your authority. Now, as you blunder so egregiously 
about when he died, what confidence can be placed 
in you when you undertake to tell how he died? 
Let me give you an easy mathematical problem in 
the Rule of Three. If a man makes a blunder 
of ten years in fixing the date of an event 
that happened one hundred and fourteen years 
ago, how many years would he lose or gain in 

fixing the date of events that took place four 
I.C. S.— 14 



210 INGERSOLL'S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

or five thousand years ago? and what would his 
authority be worth in discussing the chronology of 
Moses? 

Having given your honest thought as to when 
Voltaire died, we are ready to hear some of your 
story as to the manner of his death. 

Ingersoll. — Upon the fences of expectation gath- 
ered the unclean birds of superstition, impatiently 
waiting for their prey. 

Lambert. — There, now, enough of that. That's 
only poetry. Do not let those " unclean birds " dis- 
tract your attention from the main drift of your 
story. 

Ingersoll. — Two day before his death, his nephew 
went to seek the Cure of St. Sulpice and the Abbe 
_Gautier, and brought them into his uncle's sick 
chamber, who was then informed that they were 
there. "Ah, well," said Voltaire, ''give them my 
compliments and my thanks." 

Lambert. — You state this in such a way as to 
leave the impression that the coming of the priests 
was the result of the pious zeal of his nephew and 
not at the solicitation of Voltaire himself. The 
following letter explains the presence of the priests 
at Voltaire's bedside : — 

" You have promised me, sir, to come to hear me. 
I entreat you would take the trouble of calling on 



REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 211 

me as soon as possible. Signed : Voltaire, Paris, 
26th of February, 1778." 

Now, " honor bright," why did you suppress this 
letter? If you did not know of its existence, you 
are too ignorant to undertake to give an account of 
the manner of Voltaire's death, and if you knew of 
its existence and had not the " courage of the soul " 
to give it, what are we to think of you? Go on. 

Ingersoll. — The Abbe spoke some words to Vol- 
taire, exhorting him to patience. The Cure of St. 
Sulpice then came forward, having announced him- 
self, and asked Voltaire, lifting his voice, if he ac- 
knowledged the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
The sick man pushed one of his hands against the 
Cure's coif, shoving him back and cried, turning 
abruptly to the other side : " Let me die in peace." 

The Cure seemingly considered his person soiled 
and his coif dishonored by the touch of the philos- 
opher. He made the nurse give him a little brush- 
ing and went out with the Abbe Gautier. 

Lambert. — This Abbe's name was Gaultier and 
not Gautier as you repeat it. But amid your ac- 
cumulation of blunders this is a small matter. We 
can make out what you mean. 

It should have occurred to you that the Abbe 
might have had other reasons than the " touch of 
the philosopher" for having the nurse give him a 



212 INGERSOLL' S CHRISTMAS SERMON 

little brushing. The French Abbe is proverbially 
a neat and cleanly person. 

Ingersoll. — " He expired," says Wagniere, " on 
May 30," 1 787, at about a quarter past eleven o'clock 
at night, with the most perfect tranquillity. 

Lambert. — How exceedingly minute this writer 
is about the time, after having made a blunder of 
nine years as to the date — as quoted by Ingersoll. 

Now as to Voltaire's death and the circumstances 
attending it. On February 5, 1778, he left Ferney, 
where he had resided for many years, and arrived 
in Paris on the 10th, at the age of eighty-four years. 
About a fortnight after his arrival, he became seri- 
ously ill and sent for a confessor, as appears from the 
following letter to the Abbe Gaultier, which as it 
is short I will requote : — 

" You have promised me, sir, to come to hear me. 
I entreat you would take the trouble of calling on 
me as soon as possible. Signed : Voltaire, Paris, 
the 26th of February, 1778." 

As a result of this interview with the Abb6, and 
six days after the date of the above letter, he wrote 
the following declaration in the presence of the 
Abbe Gaultier, the Abbe Mignot, and the Marquis 
de Villevieille, which is copied from the minutes 
deposited with M. Momet, notary at Paris : — 

" I, the underwritten, declare, that for these four 






REVIEWED BT L. A. LAMBERT. 213 

days past, having been afflicted with a vomiting of 
blood, at the age of eighty-four, and not having 
been able to drag myself to the Church, the Rev. 
the rector of St. Sulpice, having been pleased to 
add to his good works, that of sending to me the 
Abbe Gaultier, I confessed to him, and if it please 
God to dispose of me, I die in the Church in which 
I was born, * hoping that the divine mercy will 
pardon all my faults. Second of March, 1778. 
Signed Voltaire, in the presence of Abbe Mignot 
my nephew, and the Marquis de Villevieille, my 
friend." 

Now, again, I ask, why, in giving an account 
of Voltaire's mental state, previous to his death, 
did you suppress this important document? 

After the witnesses had signed this declaration, 
Voltaire added these words, which are copied from 
the same minutes in possession of M. Momet, not- 
ary at Paris : 

"The Abbe Gaultier, my confessor, having ap- 
prised me, that it was said among a certain set of 
people ' that I should protest against anything I 
did at my death ; ' I declare that I never made such 
a speech, and that it is an old jest, attributed long 
since to many of the learned, more enlightened than 
lam." 



*The Catholic Church. 



214 INGERSOLUS CHRISTMAS SERMON 

This declaration is also signed by the Marquis de 
Villevieille, the same to whom, eleven years before, 
Voltaire wrote, " Conceal your march from the en- 
emy, in your endeavors to crush the wretch" words 
with which he closed many of his letters to his infi- 
del friends. 

He permitted the above declaration to be carried 
to the Rector of St. Sulpice and to the Archbishop 
of Paris to know whether it would be sufficient. 

After having thus purged himself and relieved 
his guilty mind, he recovered sufficiently to busy 
himself about his affairs, and, like the consummate 
hypocrite he was all his life, he scoffed at himself 
as usual. In the latter part of May he relapsed, 
and to quote from the " Encyclopaedia Britannica : " 
M On May 30 the priests were once more sent for, 
to wit, his nephew the Abbe Mignot, the Abbe 
Gaultier, who had officiated on the former occasion, 
and the parish priest, the Cure of St. Sulpice. He 
was, however, in a state of half insensibility, and 
petulantly motioned them away." 

The Abbe Gaultier signed a paper in which he 
declared that he was sent for at the request of 
Voltaire, but found him too far gone to confess. 
He died on May 30, 1778, not 1788, as you igno- 
rantly assert. 

The Cure of St. Sulpice refused to inter the 






REVIEWED BT Z. A. LAMBERT. 



2I 5 



body and it was taken to the Abbey of Scellieres, 
where, on the presentation of the declaration of 
the second of March (given above), it was buried. 

I make the following quotation descriptive of 
the scenes at his deathbed from " Letters of Certain 
Jews to Voltaire," appendix page 596. 

" D'Alembert, Diderot, and about twenty others 
of the conspirators who had beset his apartment, 
never approached him but to witness their own 
ignominy, and often he would curse them and ex- 
claim: 'Retire, it is you that have brought me to 
my present state! Begone! I could have done 
without you all ; but you could not exist without 
me! And what a wretched glory you have procured 
me! ' Then would succeed the horrid remembrance 
of his conspiracy. They could hear him the prey 
of anguish and dread, alternately supplicating or 
blaspheming that God against whom he had con- 
spired ; and in plaintive accents would he cry out, 
1 Oh, Christ! Oh, Jesus Christ! ' And then com- 
plain that he was abandoned by God and man. 
The hand which had traced in ancient writ the 
sentence of an impious and reviling King seemed 
to trace before his eyes, k Crush them, do crush the 
wretch.' In vain he turned his head away; the 
time was coming apace when he was to appear be- 
fore the tribunal of Him whom he had blasphemed, 



216 INGERSOLVS CHRISTMAS SERMON. 

and his physicians, particularly M. Tronchin, called 
to administer relief, retired thunderstruck, declar- 
ing the death of the impious man to be terrible 
indeed. The pride of the conspirators would 
willingly have suppressed these declarations, but 
it was in vain. The Mareschal de Richelieu fled 
from the bedside declaring it to be a sight too ter- 
rible to be sustained ; and M. Tronchin, that the 
furies of Orestes could give but a faint idea of those 
of Voltaire." 

This account of the unhappy end of Voltaire is 
confirmed by a letter of M. de Luc, an eminent 
philosopher, and man of the strictest honor and 
probity. 

As there is nothing worthy of attention in the 
remainder of Ingersoll's Telegram article, we will 
take a recess here till his next outbreak. 

THE END. 



INGERSOLL'S 

CHRISTMAS 

SERMON....... 

REVIEWED BY 
Rev. L. A» Lambert, LL.D. 



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